The historic Olympic Towers office building in downtown Buffalo is going up for sale through an online foreclosure auction.

Bidding in the auction will take place May 17-20, according to a listing on auction.com, which identifies the opening bid as $1 million. The auction is being advertised in such national newspapers as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

Olympic Towers’ tenants include U. S. District Bankruptcy Court, other government agencies and some traditional office tenants. The Office of the United States Trustee signed a lease earlier this year.

J. E. Robert Cos., which is based in McLean, Va., owns the Olympic Towers, said Shana Stegner, director of office sales and leasing for CB Richard Ellis- Buffalo, which handles management and leasing of the property.

The property at 300 Pearl St. has been upgraded and has solidified its tenant roster, making this a suitable time to try to sell it, Stegner said.

“We’ve added more tenants and secured existing tenants on longer-term leases,” she explained,

Some ads for the Olympic Towers auction have mistakenly listed the starting price in the bidding as $2 million. The $1 million starting price is the correct amount, said Heather Filkins of Jones Lang LaSalle, which is assisting with the auction.

The Olympic Towers’ original 10-story structure was built in 1902. It was renovated and expanded from 1987 to 1990 to include an interconnecting atrium between the original 10 floors and a new structure. The property consists of about 143,000 square feet of space and is 76 percent occupied, according to an online listing.

Before becoming known as Olympic Towers, the property was built as one of the first YMCA complexes in the country to include residences.

The Olympic Towers is one of several commercial properties that J. E. Robert is trying to sell, Stegner said. A representative of the company could not be reached to comment Wednesday.

The property, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, has changed hands a number of times over the years. It has twice gone through foreclosure proceedings, including in 2008.