The long-vacant Springfield landmark Heer’s building sold for $960,000 at an auction yesterday on the south steps of the Greene County Courthouse.
Chris Barhorst - an attorney with Kansas City law firm Swanson Midgley LLC and representative of the buyer, real estate investment group E&J HIDC LLC - submitted the lone and winning bid among a crowd of roughly 50 bystanders.
E&J HIDC purchased the loan on the building owned by Indian Wells, Calif.-based Chouteau Properties Inc. before foreclosing on the property. E&J HIDC yesterday purchased the building out of foreclosure. Allison Tanner of Swanson Midgley represented note holder E&J HIDC on the sale.
Chouteau Properties Inc. had owned the building that St. Louis developer Kevin McGowan unsuccessfully worked to turn into a mixed-use property centered around loft apartments, according to
Springfield Business Journal archives.
Barhorst said the Kansas City-based investors that comprise E&J have no firm plans for the building.
“It’s just a business transaction,” Barhorst said. “They work with foreclosures, and if they can make money off of foreclosures, they’re happy to do it.”
He said E&J, which was formed in February according to Missouri secretary of state records, was established to purchase notes and foreclose on defaulted loans. Barhorst said the partners would likely try to sell the property, though they could use relationships with developers to work up plans for future uses.
“They have relationships with developers who have developed apartment complexes in Kansas City and elsewhere,” he said. “There is nothing set in stone yet.”
After failing to obtain financing, McGowan scuttled his $29.3 million redevelopment plans for the Heer’s building in late 2010. McGowan bought the property from the city for $3 million in 2007 and later sold it to Chouteau Properties with an agreement that he would buy it back after completion of the project, according to SBJ archives.
McGowan followed developers Vaughn Prost and Warren Davis, who had each planned to redevelop the eight-story, 150,000-square-foot building after the Heer’s department store closed in 1995.[[In-content Ad]]
