The Warrenton Outlet Center sold for $875,000 in an online auction last week, but the identity of the buyer has not been released. An auction.com spokesperson told The Record the buyer was from Las Vegas and will have 30 days to close on the 199,000-square-foot shopping facility that has been in decline for several years and was last sold during a foreclosure sale in November. A total of four bids were received during the three-day auction, which began last Tuesday and concluded around 12:50 p.m. Thursday. Bidding began at $375,000. The spokesperson confirmed the transaction met the minimum bid requirement, but declined to release further details. The Warrenton Outlet Center property consists of three buildings on 35 acres. It 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. A third phase, however, never materialized. 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. In December, the Federal Highway Administration granted approval to the city of Warrenton to allow a second Interstate 70 interchange be constructed west of the outlet center in the area of Route MM. City officials hope the interchange could lead to additional traffic to the mall in the future. However, officials have yet to identify how the interchange project will be funded and no time line has been established to begin the project. 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.