The PNC Center at 1 Cascade Plaza in Akron’s downtown may soon have a new owner.
The Development Finance Authority of Summit County, which has owned the 23-story tower since last year, has a signed letter of intent from a Northeast Ohio buyer at a purchase price of $2.8 million, DFA President Chris Burnham said Monday.
He did not identify the buyer and would not say what their planned use for the building might be, but said it “stands to reason” that the building should be in the hands of a development company.
“It’s their purpose to develop and redevelop properties,” he said. “We’ve just been a placeholder.”
The sale should close by the end of the year, according to the letter of intent, Burnham said.
The DFA, which offers bonds for projects that developers might not be able to obtain on their own, took over the building last year to keep it from entering foreclosure when the previous owner failed to pay some taxes and a bond payment that was due, the Akron Beacon Journal reported at the time.
Burnham said the DFA has spent about $2 million on the building. Those costs include paying off bonds that funded updating the boiler, getting the elevator certified and covering the bills of a security firm that had not been paid, along with other maintenance expenses, Burnham said.
With the proceeds from the sale, the DFA would recoup its own costs, then share the remainder of the funds with the government agencies that didn’t get their taxes paid when the transfer occurred.
“We weren’t obligated to make any payment, but I feel it’s the right thing to do,” Burnham said.
City asked to forgive payments on lease so deal can go through
As part of the potential sale, the City of Akron has been asked to forgive up to $170,000 for a ground lease that it deferred payments on when the DFA took over the building, said Sean Vollman, the deputy director of economic development for the city. Vollman said the initial plan was to take the lease payments the city was owed once the building was sold, but the sales price doesn’t make that feasible.
Members of Akron’s City Council are due to vote to forgive the debt next week to ease the sale. The ground lease is $20,000 a quarter; the total amount forgiven would cover two years of payments plus the month of January 2025 if closing hasn’t happened yet.
Vollman said he understood that the new owners intend to continue to use the building as office space. Burnham said it’s now about 55% occupied.
Having an owner who’s interested in upgrading and improving the building’s offices would make 1 Cascade Plaza “more attractive, more usable for today’s office users,” Vollman said.
“Getting people downtown is the key,” he said. “Residential is the trend, and it’s great. We also want people to buy lunches and who are here at happy hour.”
A successful sale and redevelopment project will bring more workers to the building and help get more money into government coffers through the lease and taxes, Vollman said.
In a committee meeting Monday, Jeff Fusco, an at-large member of City Council, thanked Burnham for “ensuring that building continues to thrive.”
“It houses a lot of jobs, hopefully future jobs that can land there,” Fusco said. “It’s good, obviously, for the City of Akron to have these buildings.”
Fusco said in an interview after Monday’s City Council meeting that the building’s last few years were “kind of a struggle.” The sale was good news, he said.
“We’re looking forward to seeing that person come in, breathe some life into that building,” he said.
Burnham said he hopes to close the sale in December if not earlier. The DFA will continue to be tenants in the building.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to include additional comments from Jeff Fusco, vice president and at-large member of Akron City Council. Staff writer Doug Brown contributed to this story.