YOUNGSTOWN Bank building up for auction

Frustrations with city officials prompted the owners to explore the sale.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
YOUNGSTOWN -- Ownership of the National City Bank building downtown is up for grabs with an auction scheduled for June 17.
A Phoenix company has a tentative agreement to buy the building from local owners, but is trying to auction it as it completes the deal.
The owners, Michael Camacci and Rokki Rogan, say the auction is legal but they don't like it and think it may cause the Phoenix company to miss the purchase deadline in the contract. Camacci and Rogan are partners in Landmark Commercial Real Estate Services in Austintown but own the bank building under a company called 20 West.
They say there will be no extension, so ownership of the building would remain with them if Diversified Equity Holdings of Phoenix misses the deadline.
Diversified's auctioneer said the company has plenty of time to complete the auction and the deal with Camacci and Rogan.
William Fox, chairman of Michael Fox International in Baltimore, said the process is common in real estate deals.
Diversified, which buys and develops buildings across the country, doesn't want to retain the Youngstown building but thinks it can make a profit at auction, Fox said.
Camacci said he doesn't like the auction because it could unsettle the tenants and gives the impression that the building is in trouble.
Fox said his company auctions buildings for large corporations all the time and the use of an auction doesn't indicate financial distress.
A press release from Fox says the building is 80 percent occupied and had a net operating income of $570,000 last year. Net operating income is revenue minus operating expenses, not including interest expense, taxes and one-time costs.
National City Bank will remain in the building. It occupies about 69 percent of the nine-story building and is in the sixth year of a 15-year lease that runs through March 2012. There are also lease options beyond that. Another major tenant is the Green, Haines & amp; Sgambati law firm.
Diversified has placed a minimum bid of $3.995 million on the building and is bound to sell it to the highest offer of at least that amount, Fox said.
He called the minimum bid price "extremely cheap" and said his firm has received nearly 100 requests for detailed information on the building from potential bidders.
Camacci and Rogan's partnership bought the building from National City in 1997 for $2.55 million. They declined to reveal the purchase price offered by Diversified but said it was a "great number."
They said they have spent more than $500,000 to upgrade the building and said all office areas are in good shape. Two projects, costing $120,000 each, were the installation of new heating units on two floors and a computerized energy management system.
The fifth and the seventh floors are vacant, although the upper floors are smaller than the lower floors.
Camacci said buying the building has been a good financial decision, but he and Rogan explored the possibility of a sale because of frustrations with city officials.
Camacci said city officials haven't cooperated with them on small issues, such as requests to remove a barrier on Commerce Street which prevents some traffic from turning into the building's basement parking, assist in sidewalk repair and ban parking on Federal Plaza because vehicles hit the building.
He said the partners also have to deal with tenants and prospective tenants who think the city income tax is too high and there isn't close enough parking.
Mayor George McKelvey couldn't be reached to comment.
Camacci and Rogan also have been trying to buy the Phar-Mor Centre next door, but that effort is on hold, Camacci said.
The developers want the parking lot across Commerce Street so they can offer parking to tenants as the building's current owner, Strouss Building Associates, has. The city owns the lot, but officials don't want to turn it over to Camacci and Rogan unless they can demonstrate that they have a major tenant who needs it, said Jeff Chagnot, city economic development director.