A minimum bid of $375,000 was offered for the Warrenton Outlet Center, which has been put up for sale in an online auction. The lone bid was submitted on Tuesday afternoon, within a few hours of the start of the three-day auction. No other bids had been made as of press time on the property, which consists of three buildings totaling 35 acres. The online auction is scheduled to end 10 a.m. central time this Thursday, Feb. 9. According to the listing at auction.com, bids can only be made in increments of $100,000. While a minimum bid has been set, Warrenton city officials said a certain amount will have to be reached for the outlet center to be sold. They said that exact amount had not been released to them. The Warrenton Outlet Center opened in September 2003 with about 119,000 square feet of space. A second phase was added two years later, boosting the center's total retail space to just under 200,000 square feet. The mall was once a popular shopping destination for local and regional residents, but has experienced a sharp decline in tenants over the past several years. On Nov. 1, the shopping facility was sold for $1.8 million to U.S. Bank during a foreclosure sale held outside the Warren County Courthouse. Prescott Capital Management had owned the shopping facility since 2006, but defaulted on its loan. U.S. Bank was the company's financial lender. Currently, the outlet mall has around a dozen businesses operating out of the facility. The Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce also has an office in the mall's main atrium. A drop in the mall's interest by retail companies and shoppers has been attributed to a tough economic climate and competition from other retail developments in St. Charles County. Three stores - Levi's Outlet Store, G.H. Bass & Company and Famous Footwear - closed last month. Last year two popular stores, The Gap and Dress Barn, both relocated to Wentzville. More space will soon be vacant. Imo's Pizza is relocating to a new site in the Market Street Plaza strip center in Warrenton, while the Nike Factory Store is expected to close in April and move to The Meadows at Lake Saint Louis. The appraised value for the outlet center property is $5,381,430, according to records from the county assessor's office. That figure has been the same since 2009. The assessed value, meanwhile, over the past three years is $1,690,060. The highest the property has been appraised at, according to county records, is $9,515,890 in 2001 and 2002. During the same period, the assessed value was $3,045,080. The outlet mall continues to be managed by the Woodmont Company, which was appointed to oversee operations of the shopping center when it went into receivership status in 2009. The company is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. In October, two weeks prior to the foreclosure sale, the Woodmont Company announced it was changing the name of the shopping facility from Preferred Outlets at Warrenton back to the Warrenton Outlet Center. The mall had been renamed following the completion of a 2006 sale from Horizon Group Properties to Prescott Capital Management.