YOUNGSTOWN – A U-Haul sister company purchased the Ward Bakery building for $800,000 with plans to convert the location, used by artists for decades, into a self-storage facility.

The building sale was finalized July 22 and announced July 31 by U-Haul. But it wasn’t until Tuesday that the ownership change to Amerco Real Estate Co. for $800,000 was recorded by the Mahoning County auditor.

The property’s value, according to the auditor’s website, is $212,520

Ward Riverworks LLC, operated by Tamara and James Deeley, purchased the 34,000-square-foot building at 1024 Mahoning Ave. on the city’s lowest West Side for $220,000 on July 14, 2018.

With very little improvement work done to the building in the past six years, Ward Riverworks ended up selling Ward Bakery for considerably more than what it spent to buy it.

It was sold on Jan. 17, 1996, for $225,000 to Rolland Kannal and then to Valley Realty Ltd. on Nov. 10, 1997, for $150,000, according to the county auditor’s website.

Amerco is the parent company of U-Haul International and Amerco Real Estate Co.

The latter, located in Phoenix, Arizona, serves as U-Haul’s real estate and development arm.

U-Haul will renovate the Ward Bakery building and open in spring 2025 with up to 800 climate-controlled storage units with the exterior “preserved to maintain as much of the original character as possible,” according to a July 31 statement from the company.

Ward is located across the street from a U-Haul storage facility and truck rental business at the former Islay’s Dairy plant. The plant stopped making ice cream there in 1969. The building was vacant until 1987 when U-Haul bought it.

The company will hire up to six employees for the new location.

The dozen or so artists who rented space at Ward – some for decades – were informed in an April 8 letter by the Deeleys that the 101-year-old building was sold and the new owners were evicting them, effective June 10.

Some artists found other spaces while others didn’t. Also, LOOP Youngstown – an initiative to develop an arts and culture center in the area – is seeking to open a location, likely in Struthers.

When the notices were sent April 8 it was believed Ward would be turned into storage space.

Ward Bakery closed its business in the 1960s. For about the past 50 years, it was used as rental space for various artists.

In July 2023, the Deeleys told The Vindicator that the building could be in danger of closing because of costly upgrades, particularly to the building’s fire sprinkler system.

Tamara Deeley said last year that she and her husband bought the building “as is.”

She said at the time: “Shame on us for not doing more due diligence. But you don’t know what you don’t know. My husband had been a tenant in that building for 33 years at that point. He knew the previous owner.”

A city fire department inspection on May 26, 2023, turned up 29 violations.

Those issues included the need to replace sprinklers, electrical wiring violations, exposed wiring and other “hazardous electrical conditions,” improper installation of fire extinguishers, obstructed exits, lack of a certificate of occupancy, lack of signs for exits and other “unsafe conditions.” Also listed on the report were “countless life safety issues.”

The most expensive repair at the time was the sprinkler system, which includes switching every pipe in the building from ¾ of an inch to 1 inch. That alone was going to cost about $212,000, Tamara Deeley said in July 2023.