CLEVELAND, Ohio — The latest appraisal of Cuyahoga County's Ameritrust complex sets its value at $16.9 million -- $28 million less than taxpayers have invested in the downtown property.

The December

was commissioned by the K&D Group, a development company that wants to transform the corner of East Ninth Street and Euclid Avenue into luxury apartments, a banquet center, condos, stores and a restaurant atop a 28-story tower.

Christopher Agnew, another developer who last year proposed a hotel, apartments, movie theaters, nightclubs and a plastic-surgery center inside Ameritrust, said this week the complex is probably worth only $10 million.

The values reflect a depressed real estate market brought lower by a glut of downtown office space, developers said. They give credence to a long-held fear that taxpayers will lose millions of dollars when the county sells the complex.

County Executive Ed FitzGerald won't consider any proposal until at least October, when he expects a study of 31 county-owned properties and 26 leased spaces to be completed. But he's skeptical that that any sale will recoup the more than $44 million taxpayers have spent.

"It's going to be a real challenge to dig us out of that hole," FitzGerald said. "It's almost impossible to get our money back."

The county's own estimate is $24.6 million, a value that includes the 28-story tower, historic rotunda and cluster of surrounding buildings that once served as a bank and office complex, according to county tax records. The buildings have been empty since 1996.

County commissioners bought the complex in 2005 for $21.8 million, at the urging of former county Commissioner Tim Hagan. They envisioned a new headquarters for county government, and spent $3 million for a real estate consultant, $14.4 million for construction, supplies and asbestos removal, and $5.1 million for a connected parking garage.

In 2007, a lack of money forced commissioners to scrap their plans and shutter except the garage, paying all the while for maintenance and utilities. Last year, the county spent $1.4 million, offset by $847,000 in parking profits, according to county records.

In 2008, Willoughby-based K&D hoped to remake the complex as apartments and a boutique hotel. But the $35 million deal collapsed the following year.

That price is no longer realistic, Doug Price, K&D's chief executive, said this week.

The appraisal of Ameritrust's five office buildings is based on the sale prices of 10 other downtown buildings, including the Cleveland Athletic Club, Baker Building, the Huntington Building and Columbia Building.

The Columbia building, which the appraisal says is in better condition than Ameritrust, sold for $11.68 per square foot.

Huntington was in average condition, and its 1.3 million square feet of office space sold last June for $18.5 million, or $14.31 per square foot, said K&D's appraisal by the Robert Weiler Co. In comparison, the gutted shell of the 800,000-square-foot Ameritrust is worth $10 to $12 per square foot.

K&D's development proposal excludes the two Ameritrust parking garages and, instead, focuses on the office buildings, which the appraisal values at $9.2 million.

The tower, designed by lauded modernist architect Marcel Breuer, has a 15,000-square-foot floor plan.

Real estate experts say the floors are too small for modern office space. But the size is perfect for apartments, Price said, for lots of windows without dead space in the building's core.

Price said his development would thrive downtown, where apartment buildings are packed and population has jumped 50 percent, to more than 9,000 residents, in the last decade.

The county can't sell the building outright, though, until it resolves a dispute over a ground lease. Developer Lou Frangos owns less than a half-acre on East Ninth Street, beneath what's commonly called the P building, next to the Ameritrust tower.

FitzGerald said that Ameritrust isn't the most logical site for a new government headquarters, an idea developer Ron Nicklos is still pushing.

But FitzGerald said the county could swap some of its buildings for a new home, or sell Ameritrust and the County Administration Building as a package deal.

"It has to be part of how we're going to downsize county government," he said. "We are going to be a smaller county government, with fewer employees, located in a space that's a customer-friendly environment for taxpayers."