The building costs more than £1.2m ($2m) annually to maintain and is in need of extensive repairs. It was built in 1921 and extended in 1932.

In 2001, it was placed on the USA’s National Register of Historic Places and appeared as Gotham National Bank in Batman blockbuster, The Dark Knight.

Last night, Liverpool’s deputy council leader Flo Clucas said: “Good luck to Chicago.”

In November, the Daily Post revealed how Liverpool taxpayers were paying 80 times the £25,000 which Mr Davies’s Walton Group paid the council in 1996 for a disputed option to develop Chavasse Park.

The £2m deal finally brought to an end years of legal wrangles between Davies and the local authority.

He was seeking £100m compensation for profits he claimed his company lost after council and government opposition derailed his company’s £400m shopping centre plan for the park.

After a legal battle with the city council in 2002, Mr Davies lost the right to develop the park – now the home of the £1bn Liverpool One development.

In August, 2007, Mr Davies also sold his remaining interest in Liverpool’s Exchange Flags office complex.

UK Land and Property bought the building in a multi-million pound deal in a joint venture with construction group Pochin.

Exchange Flags had lain almost empty since being acquired by Mr Davies 20 years ago.

In 2002, he handed back £4.5m received as a City Challenge improvement grant for the complex, after an out-of-court settlement.