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YOUNGSTOWN -- The downtown Chase Tower building sold for $1.15 million at auction and once the sale is final, it will signal the end of Lou Frangos as a Youngstown property owner.
USA Chase Building LLC, a sister company of the Frangos Group, owns the 14-story, 128,741-square-foot Chase Tower at 6 W. Federal St.
Frangos, chairman of the Frangos Group, said his company decided to auction off the building.
Only 26 percent of the building is occupied, and Chase Bank is moving next month to Realty Tower Apartments.
The auction began Monday and ended Wednesday with a $500,000 minimum bid required.
Frangos' company had an unpublished reserve threshold. If the sale price was below a certain amount, it didn't have to sell.
That unpublished reserve came off when the bidding hit $1 million.
Frangos' company purchased the building in 2008 for $775,000.
The $1.15 million is a "bargain-basement price," Frangos said Wednesday. "Somebody really got a deal. I wanted to turn it into housing."
The building was listed at $2.7 million a few months ago.
Frangos said Wednesday he didn't know the identity of the person or company with the $1.15 million bid.
Alex Jelepis, a real estate agent with SVN Cleveland Corporate Realty Advisors, which is selling the property, couldn't be reached Wednesday to comment.
The 96-year-old building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is eligible to receive historic tax credits for a project.
If the Chase Building hadn't been sold, Frangos said he would have been interested in buying the nearby 20 Federal Place, the flagship location for the former Strouss department store, owned by the city. The city is seeking to find a buyer to develop that building and wants to select an interested company by October.
The Chase Building is the last property owned by Frangos, a Youngstown native who purchased his first property in the city in 1998.
Over the past 23 years, Frangos' companies have sold about a dozen buildings, primarily in downtown, including Realty, Wick Towers, Stambaugh Building, Erie Terminal Place and the Plaza parking deck. During the early 2000s, Frangos was considered downtown's biggest landlord.
"Youngstown has been a great experience," he said. "I wish it well. I sold most of the buildings around 2010 to 2012, but it was a good experience. Youngstown is my hometown, and I've enjoyed being there."