Buyers plan retail development for HoJo property

With the south Springfield Howard Johnson Inn and Conference Center under contract for purchase, the buyers plan to demolish the 192-room hotel and turn the property into a retail development.

Brad Thessing of Thessing Commercial Properties LLC, who is under contract to purchase the 3333 S. Glenstone Ave. property with Kevin Guffey of central Missouri-based American Realty & Development, said the developers would work to build a 60,000-square-foot retail facility.

Thessing, who declined to disclose purchase information from Morris Group Properties Inc., said a timeline on the project has not yet been set.

"Our plan is to create new tenants within the marketplace," Thessing said of the roughly 8-acre property. "It will be new retailers. I'm not at liberty to discuss and/or disclose tenants at this time."

Thessing said Morris Group officials had indicated the hotel was reaching the end of its life expectancy and has faced increasing competition from other conference venues.

Thessing Commercial Properties closed on more than $25 million in sales within its first 15 months and since has closed on more than $400 million, according to Springfield Business Journal archives.

The hotel is scheduled to close Sept. 8. The Morris Group rebranded the hotel as Howard Johnson after assuming control of it in October 2011. Springfield businessman Jim D. Morris' company had owned the former Clarion property for seven years before selling to a California investor group in a December 2008 owner-financed $6 million deal. The investor group, doing business as Glenstone Enterprises LLC, was unable to make its payments and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2010, leaving the Morris Group to reassume control of the property, according to SBJ archives.