Winner puts 9 properties up for sale
James E. Winner Jr. is selling off a few of his properties in hopes that someone else can develop them.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
SHARON, Pa. -- Want to buy a fully operational restaurant or a post office with a built-in tenant?
Those are just two on a list of nine properties, primarily in the downtown business district, put up for sale recently by businessman James E. Winner Jr.
The restaurant is the former Schuster's Steak House in Brookfield Township that Winner bought and reopened in December 1999 as the Winner Family Restaurant. It's now closed.
The post office is the main Sharon Post Office on Shenango Avenue. Although the building is privately owned, the U.S. Postal Service has a long-term lease there.
Most of the buildings on the list are vacant with the exception of the post office and the Medal Distributing (now Medal Industries) building on Vine Avenue. They represent only a small portion of Winner's holdings in and around the city.
All nine are for sale, though Winner is also offering a lease arrangement on most of them.
Winner and his wife, Donna, bought most of them over the past decade as they came available and, though he never unveiled any specific plans, Winner said his dream was to use some of those properties to help revitalize the downtown area.
Why he's selling: Winner, the founder of Winner International, which makes and sells The Club and a variety of other anti-theft and security devices, said he isn't selling the buildings because he needs the money.
It's a matter of time, he said.
"Unfortunately, the biological clock runs," said the 72-year-old Winner. "They need to be in younger hands. I don't want to leave that kind of burden on Donna and the kids."
His goal, he said, is to get them into someone's hands who can follow through with some development.
"I think it will happen," he said, noting that he's already in negotiations on a couple of the properties.
Reaction: Mayor David O. Ryan likes the idea.
"I'd love to see somebody else acquire them and move some businesses in," he said.
They generate some property taxes now, but it would nice to see them producing some wage taxes and drawing more people into the business district, the mayor said.
Winner has had large signs printed listing what properties he wants to sell and placed them in some of the storefronts for prospective buyers to see. The signs include a list of local real estate professionals authorized to handle the transactions.
There have been rumors that the family empire created by Winner had fallen on hard financial times, but Winner said that isn't true.
The companies under the Winner umbrella aren't fat but they aren't having financial problems either, he said.
"It is a tougher economy, but are we a viable company? Yes, we are," he said.