By JAMES FINK
jfink@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1611

While the "for sale" price tag still remains on the Olympic Towers, the venerable downtown Buffalo building has seen four tenants including one of its anchor occupants renew their respective leases.

Among those that renewed or extended existing lease packages includes the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, which occupies space on portions of two floors, and the Gourmet Store, a popular restaurant that serves breakfast and lunches.

All told, the four leases equal more than 30,000 square feet and may make attract new purchase offers. The building has been heavily marketed for the past two years.

"The leases probably put us in a better position from a sales perspective," said Shana Stegner, a broker with CB Richard Ellis Buffalo, who has been retained to handle the sale with her associate, Sarah Cashimere-Warren. "We've had some offers, but this should help."

The building is owned by JPMC 2005-CIBC 12 Olympic Towers LLC, an affiliate of JP Morgan Chase Bank and Chicago's LaSalle Bank.

Last year, Olympic Towers was the subject of an online auction that failed to produce an attractive bid. One year ago, Olympic Towers went back on the market with a $3.9 million asking price, which was roughly $1 million more than the highest online bid for the 173,464-square-foot building.

Despite a healthy tenant roll, anchored by federal leases from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and the U.S. Trustees office, there have been few interested buyers in the building, which has been mired by a successive series of owners - many out-of-town interests that did not understand the Buffalo market. The building is approximately 76 percent under lease.

Most recently, the building was acquired in August 2008 by JPMC 2005-CIBC 12 Olympic Towers LLC, an affiliate of JP Morgan Chase Bank and Chicago's LaSalle Bank. JPMC 2005-CIBC 12 Olympic Towers paid $8.46 million, buying from Elman Buffalo Associates LLC. Elman had $11.2 million when it bought the building in late 1998.

The JPMC sale was part of a complex legal action, and eventual foreclosure action led by LaSalle Bank. LaSalle had been attempting to recoup an $8.3 million that JP Morgan Chase Bank originated in 2005.

Constructed one century ago and renovated and expanded in 1987, Olympic Towers sits just behind the Hyatt Regency Buffalo hotel and neighbors the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center, giving it a prime downtown location.

JPMC 2005-CIBC 12 Olympic Towers LLC has spent the last three years renovating the building.

Stegner and Cashimere-Warren have been marketing the building - which is actually two towers connected by a center atrium - locally, nationally and regionally.