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Cafaro Co. Lists McGuffey, Garland Sites for Auction
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Citing a need by the Cafaro Co. to focus on its “core properties,” a company spokesman said the real estate developer is putting the McGuffey Mall and Garland Plaza, the site of a battle over Mahoning County’s decision to move its department of Job and Family Services from there, up for auction later this month.
A three-day online auction for the properties, which are listed at auction.com, will get take place Oct. 21. The once-bustling retail center is largely shuttered, with the auction website listing its occupancy at just over 10.5%. Its sole tenant is K&P Family Sportswear & Beauty Supplies.
“What we’re looking at right now is to see what the interest level is nationwide,” said Joe Bell, director of corporate communications for the Cafaro Co. The property was listed for sale about a year ago but not actively marketed. The site received inquiries from “a few interested parties” who “probably didn’t have the wherewithal to really develop the property,” Bell said.
The starting bid for the two buildings, at 761 and 795 N. Garland Ave., is $100,000. Combined the two buildings have 238,193 square feet and 229,181 rentable square footage, and sit on 22 acres. The combined market value of both structures exceeds $500,000, according to the Mahoning County auditor's website.
“At this point, it’s not considered one of our core properties, and as a noncore property we really can’t devote an awful lot of time to redevelop it," Bell said. "We’re in the midst of several projects in different parts of the country as well as here in the Mahoning Valley,. We think it’s better that someone else who may have a local interest or may have a different idea for this property comes in and perhaps would want to redevelop it in his or her own fashion.”
The initial building that came to be known as the McGuffey Mall was built in 1954 and Garland Plaza constructed in 1960, Bell said. In 1972 additions were made to McGuffey to make it “a true interior mall” with a concourse inside.
Through the years, tenants at the McGuffey/Garland site included banks, supermarkets, a bowling alley, the U.S. Postal Service, the most recent tenant to vacate the mall building, in 2011, and, perhaps most famously, the Mahoning County Department of Job and Family Services.
“But as the fortunes of commercial real estate on this side of the city have gone over the years, after the heyday of the 1960s and ‘70s, the demand just hasn’t been there,” Bell said. “Large portions of this property are empty and now it’s time to think about redeveloping it.”
The legal battle over the county’s decision to relocate Job and Family Services to Oakhill Renaissance Place from the Garland Plaza sparked a bitter legal battle between the Cafaro Co. and the county, as well as charges of misconduct by county officials who opposed the 2007 move and corruption charges against public officials members of the Cafaro family. The charges were later dropped.
Bell acknowledged that the loss of the JFS office, which occupied about 97,000 square feet, had an impact on the rest of the property.
“Even before that, though, the particular neighborhood and this part of the city had seen a real decline in the demand for commercial space and there were a variety of factors there,” he remarked. “You can debate the reasons behind it, but for whatever reason this property is now available.”
The property can be subdivided for several uses, Bell said. Originally intended for retail, much of it was converted to office space. “It can be reconverted into something else, perhaps light warehousing or even storage,” he said. “There are a lot of different uses for this particular property.”
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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