YOUNGSTOWN­ — It turns out the city did receive a formal offer from a Warren company to buy and develop the downtown 20 Federal Place building, but it wasn’t until the law department reviewed the documentation that it was deemed to be a proposal.

City law department officials apologized for the miscommunication that only came to light after a story Sunday in The Vindicator about no formal proposals being given to the city by a June 1 deadline.

After reading the article, Mark Marvin, president and owner of Downtown Development Group in Warren, contacted a reporter and city officials questioning why his company’s submission wasn’t considered a formal proposal.

In an email to the newspaper, Marvin wrote that information he gave to the city by the June 1 deadline included what he would do with each floor and “outlined my intent to buy the building.”

He added he made “an offer to buy the building attached with several other stipulations and an outline of the plans for the building.”

After the article appeared and Marvin contacted city officials, Deputy Law Director Dana Lantz said she spoke to Hunter Morrison, the city’s planning consultant, who had previously told her and a reporter that no formal proposals were submitted. Instead, he said Downtown Development and Desmone Architects of Pittsburgh had expressed interest in the project and wanted more time to turn in official proposals.

“When I looked at the (Downtown Development documentation), it was my interpretation that, in fact, it was a proposal,” she said. “Was it a complete proposal? I don’t know. Hunter took it as a letter of interest, and that’s not correct.”

Lantz and Law Director Jeff Limbian apologized for the issue.

CONFUSION

Morrison “made a decision on what’s a bid and what’s a letter,” Limbian said. “We explained to Hunter that it constituted a proposal. There was a misimpression with what they had on the economic development side. It was confusion. The right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing.”

Limbian said: “Since the law department was not at the table for every meeting, some things got lost in translation. We are a work in progress.”

Marvin said: “We’re going to let the process play out. We’ll let the city do their due diligence.”

But Marvin expressed some concern with how the city handled the process changing the June 1 deadline to a “soft” deadline and giving Desmone as well as potentially others more time.

“It seems like there was a deadline, and the city then extended it,” he said.

If the deadline goes into July and several other companies submit proposals, Marvin said his company could “adjust our thought process and think if we’ll go forward with our proposal.”

The company worked hard and quickly to get a proposal in by the June 1 deadline, he said.

There is no new deadline to submit, but it’s expected to be in July or August, Morrison said.

Downtown Development Group has renovated properties in Warren, including the Robins Theatre, the Mahoning Building and CharBenay’s Wine on the River.

NOT REVEALED

In a written letter to a reporter, Limbian and Lantz declined a request to provide Downtown Development’s proposal. They cited Ohio Revised Code that states “material submitted to a public office in response to a competitive solicitation shall not be considered public record” until “the date the public office announces the award of a contract based on the competitive solicitation or the cancellation of the competitive solicitation.”

They wrote: “The purpose of this section is to preserve an equal playing field for entities that submit bids as it would not be fair for competing bidders to obtain proposals of one another before a contract was awarded.” The city will “disclose these records once it awards a contract or rejects all proposals,” they wrote.

Marvin declined Tuesday to provide the information he submitted to the city.

The city purchased 20 Federal Place in November 2004 after Phar-Mor, which used the building as its corporate headquarters, went out of business. The city has unsuccessfully tried a few times to sell the 332,000-square foot building that was the flagship location of Strouss’ department store for many decades.

Steadfast City, a St. Louis design firm, envisions a $34.5 million project for the building at 20 W. Federal St. with apartments and offices on the upper four floors of the seven-story building, an improved food court on the first floor, and technology firms, small businesses and meeting space on the second and third floors with a bowling alley, bar and malt shop in the basement. Steadfast City received a $40,000 federal grant to create its vision for the building.

dskolnick@vindy.com