Two major downtown Youngstown buildings are being sold to the Western Reserve Port Authority for $6 million. 

Normally, a sale like this would be made to a for-profit entity, and the WRPA will reap some financial benefits by owning the City Centre One and Commerce buildings. 

The WRPA said the intention behind doing it this way is to ensure the dozens of tenants in this building remain without disruptions.

This comes after previous legacy owners decided to put these buildings on the market after owning them for around 50 years.

The WRPA Executive Director Anthony Trevena believes taking over is in the best interest of the city.

"They've just taken really great care of that property," Trevena said, "We want to see that continue to go forward."

The buildings hold around 40 tenants and have been for decades, most of which are private businesses.

He said buying the buildings meant WRPA could ensure these two prominent properties that are almost filled, will remain without any further disruptions downtown. The buildings house banking institutions, accounting firms, architects and others, along with employing the staff that maintains the buildings.

"These are a lot of really important tenants to the downtown area," he added, "We want to keep those folks in Youngstown. We want to keep them in the Mahoning Valley. We want to keep that together. What's happened in City Centre One is, it's become kind of a center of economic development. It's a one-stop shop."

He said while most of the space is occupied, there is some opportunity for new businesses to come in, including a bar space up for lease in the City Centre One building that's open for lease.

The port authority will save an estimated amount of somewhere in the low thousands in property tax by owning these buildings, according to the county auditor.

All other private entities that are tenants in the buildings will continue to pay property tax to the county.

At this time, the plan is for the port authority to own the building indefinitely.