Only one offer for former Eastern Bank building

LYNN – It took longer for auction officials to read the disclaimer and the purchase and sales agreement than it did to conduct the actual auction Friday for 270 Union St., the former Eastern Bank building, which only received one bid.Marianne Sullivan of Sullivan & Sullivan Auctioneers set the opening bid at $1.5 million and called on the 11 registered bidders no fewer than seven times before someone bit. The big fish, however, was Santander Bank, which had initially foreclosed on the property. A bank representative bid $1,503,000, and, try as she might, Sullivan could push it no hirer.”It’s $1.6 million to you,” she said pointing at one bidder. “That’s the next bid if you want to get into the game.”He didn’t. And neither did developers Gordon Hall Jr. or Charles Patsios or real estate agent Christopher Bibby. Hall said had the starting bid been about $1 million lower, there might have been some action, but at $1.5 million, he was not interested.”It’s also a tight timeline,” he said.Under the directives of the bid package, the winning bidder would have been required to put a $75,000 deposit down immediately, pay 10 percent of the asking price by Aug. 20 and close on the deal within 30 days. There is also approximately $86,500 owed in municipal taxes, as of July 31, on the property.Patsios said he liked the building, which was in assessed in 2013 for $4.7 million, but, like Hall, felt the price tag was too high. He also felt bad for Brian Strasnick, who owned the building before Santander foreclosed on it. “The bank should have done more to work with Strasnick,” he said.Strasnick owned the Union Street multi-tenant office building in March 2013 when a deal was struck with North Shore Community College, which planned to move its culinary and cosmetology programs into the building. By December 2013, however, the NSCC plan was scrapped due to financing problems, and Santander moved in and took the building in foreclosure.Patsios said Strasnick took a risk in making the deal with the college, and, in the end, it hurt him as well as the city.Patsios also suspected the building may not be as solid as it seems. Greater Lynn Senior Services Executive Director Paul Crowley indicated the same.Crowley said it wasn’t that long ago that GLSS, in partnership with several other agencies, had 270 Union St. under agreement for $3.5 million. After doing their “due diligence,” it was determined the building wasn’t worth half that, and they pulled out, he said.He showed up Friday morning to watch the proceedings out of curiosity but said he’d still like to acquire the building if the price was right.Several people approached the Santander representative who bid on the property after the auction was over, but he had no comment on the purchase.