The historical Pullman Standard Administration office building on Hansen Avenue has been sold to a private developer.

The building has been empty since the Pullman Standard Butler Car Works closed in 1982, but in recent years it has been through a number of owners.

The new owner is Sumner McDanel, a Renfrew attorney, who has begun buying properties in Butler County, such as the former Castle Rubber plant in East Butler, the former Barnes Steel plant and the old Butler hospital at the corner of South Main Street and Pittsburgh Road.

McDanel bought the Pullman building in September for $420,000.

He said Wednesday he bought it as part of his Achieve Real Estate Co., LLC, to develop on his own, but he is not prepared to talk about specific plans now.

McDanel must first meet with the Butler Area Sewer Authority about getting the building reconnected to the public sewage system.

After the city Redevelopment Authority bought the abandoned office building for $1, the sewage line from the building was cut.

Now, with the authority trying to solve overflow problems that have resulted in development permit stoppages by the state Department of Environmental Protection, getting the building reconnected could be difficult. Because the Pullman building's line was physically cut, the owners should have to pay for a new tap in.

McDanel said he is meeting with BASA members and will attend the authority's December meeting.

Pullman has been a tough sell to developers because of its historic designation, said Diane Sheets, executive director of the Community Development Corporation of Butler County.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the CDC worked to redevelop the Pullman Standard site. Those efforts resulted in the Pullman Square Shopping Center and the Pullman Business Park.

The CDC in 2005 bought all but 7 acres of the remaining 43-acre site from the Trinity Corp. of Dallas, Texas. Trinity, which makes rail car parts, closed the Butler shop and moved its operations south.

The remaining 7 acres are owned by the Butler Transit Authority, which plans to build a new bus terminal.

Sheets and her staff are working to attract a mix of industrial and white-collar businesses to the site, but the one piece of the property puzzle that hadn't been spoken for had been the Pullman office building.

"We're glad that it has been sold to a private owner with the possibility of development," Sheets said.

The building opened in 1902 as did the Standard Steel Car Co., a subsidiary of Pullman. The Butler Works was closed by Pullman in 1982.

The administration building was bought by the Redevelopment Authority in 1999 for $1.

As plans for the city's West End Revitalization Project began coming together, the authority sold the property to JKD, a Butler County construction and demolition company, for $50,000. The one stipulation on the sale was that the firm demolished the Pullman cafeteria that was still attached to the office building but was in irreparable condition.

JKD, then owned by Dena Whittenberger, sold the building to Chris Gatto, owner of Gatto's Cycle Warehouse on Main Street, Butler, for $100,000.

Gatto sold it to McDanel.