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Metroplex auctioned
LIBERTY
There is a buyer for the former MetroPlex hotel and conference center on Belmont Avenue here after an auction Wednesday.
The prospective buyer signed an offer, and the seller, Aswin Ganapathy Hospitality Associates LLC, will review it, said Gordon Greene, broker and auctioneer with Cleveland-based Hanna Chartwell Commercial Real Estate.
The auction took place at 11 a.m. in Independence, Ohio, in Cuyahoga County.
Greene would not disclose the prospective buyer or the offer.
The seller set the published reserve price for the 11-acre property and the 470,000-square-foot building at $995,000. The seller allowed bidding to start at $735,000, however.
The MetroPlex at one time housed a Holiday Inn and was a Mahoning Valley destination for meetings, banquets and weddings.
Ganapathy bought it five years ago, and it has been managed by its representative, Indira Periyasamy.
It housed a Rodeway Inn and a bar called Goodies Grill and Lounge until a fire in March. After the fire, Periyasamy abruptly evicted employees and a family staying at the hotel and shut it down.
She relinquished her operating license with the Ohio Department of Commerce and also her liquor license, township officials told The Vindicator after the fire.
The auction wasn’t the first for the complex. CBRE Group of Los Angeles offered it in an online auction in November, but no bidders met the undisclosed reserve price.
Township Administrator Pat Ungaro said he hopes that whoever buys the complex “has the ability to acquire some financing and make it a first-class operation again.”