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North Lima warehouse sold for auctioneer’s use

YOUNGSTOWN — A company with ties to North Lima-based Paranzino Brothers Auctioneers has acquired a warehouse there the auction house could use to consolidate its operations.

Paranzino Enterprises LLC purchased the building at 131 W. South Range Road with the intent to lease it back to the auction company, said Tom Paranzino, whose plan is either to combine the company’s four buildings on South Avenue into one at the new site or use it for additional warehouse storage.

“We’re not interested in a renovation,” Paranzino said. “We’re interested in using it as it is.”

The $1 million sale between Paranzino Enterprises LLC and Mount West Investments, LP, closed Monday, according to the Mahoning County Auditor’s Office. Mount West had owned the building since 2006, acquiring it from Iron City Sash & Door.

Iron City, which produced commercial doors at the facility, had, according to the auditor’s office, owned the building from 1969 to 2006. At one point, Zim’s Crack Creme was made at the facility, Paranzino said.

Paranzino said he was aware the building was available, but until the pandemic forced him to change the way Paranzino Brothers Auctioneers did business — from in-person to online auctions — the warehouse didn’t suit the auction house’s needs because of inadequate parking.

Going to fully online auctions in April 2020 eliminated the need for a large parking area. Now on auction preview days, there are 20- to 30-person groups that cycle through and on collection day, between 20 to 30 trucks to load items, ” so you don’t need a 7-acre parking lot to accommodate” the vehicles, Paranzino said.

The commercial real estate website LoopNet states the property is a 62,000-square-foot manufacturing and warehouse building with offices on more than 5 acres. It was built in 1963 and underwent a renovation in 1971, according to the auditor’s office.

If the building doesn’t fit the auction company’s needs as a headquarters, it would be turned into additional storage. That decision hasn’t been made, “but I think what might be the best for us is to get us under one roof,” Paranzino said.

Paranzino Brothers Auctioneers, founded in 1996, conducts building material auctions. The company does one auction per month at its headquarters in North Lima and another at a facility the company owns in Bunker Hill, W.Va.

In addition, it tries to do eight more during the year at fairgrounds in other nearby states, Paranzino said.

The pandemic forced the company to reduce the number of auctions. Previous to the outbreak, Paranzino Brothers Auctioneers was conducting 12 auctions in North Lima and 26 elsewhere in the U.S. per year.

business@tribtoday.com

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