Local group buys Tribune building

The former Salt Lake Tribune building and an adjacent retail space last occupied by the Art of Baking have been purchased by a local real estate partnership of Vasilios Priskos and Mike Ferro called 39/42 LLC.

"We want to redevelop the building. That's our intent right now," Priskos said Thursday. "We're looking at all options — from office use to different types of residential use and, of course, retail on the main level."

The Denver Business Journal reported this week that the sale price was $3.9 million. "The price is undisclosed, but that's close enough," Priskos said. The two buildings, at 137 S. Main and 147 S. Main, together are 84,000 square feet. The Tribune building is 10 stories, and the adjacent retail building has one story and a basement. The building was home to the Salt Lake Tribune until the newspaper moved to its headquarters at The Gateway in 2005.

When William Dean Singleton, chief executive officer of Denver-based MediaNews, which owns the Salt Lake Tribune, decided to sell the Tribune building, he enlisted a broker in Denver that hired InterNet Properties Inc. Priskos is the principal broker of InterNet Properties.

Priskos tried to sell the building to developers who have invested in downtown Salt Lake City, including the city's Redevelopment Agency, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and other developers. None were interested.

The Tribune building didn't fit the budget or objectives of the RDA's downtown projects, said D.J. Baxter, executive director of the RDA. A comment from the LDS Church was not immediately available.

The property had been on the market for eight to 10 months when Priskos had Ferro make an offer through a property exchange.

"We had sold some properties, the money was in escrow, and we used the proceeds to purchase it," Priskos said. "We had to buy another piece of property. It's part of the tax code that makes you purchase a different piece of property in order to postpone taxes, and so it's called a 1031 exchange."

The property that 39/42 sold was in a business park near 2100 South and I-215.

In addition to acquiring the Tribune building as part of the deal, 39/42 acquired a building at 262 S. Main, adjacent to a building that the partnership already owned at 260 S. Main. Priskos and Ferro also acquired the property under the Walker Center parking terrace. They purchased the Wallace Bennett building on 100 South, the building that houses the Caffe Molise and the Oxford Shop Shoe Store, adjacent to the Arrow Press building that Priskos and Ferro own.