Office Park plans take shape

A nearly 30-year-old building on South National Avenue will take on a new identity by next spring, according to general contractor DuWayne Eoff. The building at 1911 S. National Ave., across from St. John's Hospital, has been vacant for about two years, but it is now undergoing an approximately $2 million renovation by Eoff & Associates.

Plans for the four-story, 60,000-square-foot structure which will be named National Avenue Offic Park comprise two floors of dividable office space, one floor of climate-controlled document storage and a floor of "common areas" devoted to tenant-use.

"We've got enough parking to rent 30,000 square feet, plus or minus, as general office," Eoff said. The top two floors, each 15,000 square feet, will hold offices that can be designed by the tenant.

The second floor will have climate-controlled document storage for area businesses.

"On top of that we're going to have conference rooms, a media room, a fitness room," with ex-ercise equipment, and men's and women's locker and shower rooms, he said. "That will just be inclusive if you rent space," Eoff added. "We'll be looking for some tenants."

Eoff, his wife Jackie, and Bill and Jane Derington own the building. Jackie Eoff is the leasing agent and Derington is the project architect.

Derington's architectural firm will occupy some office space in the building, and Eoff said the leasable space will rent for $13.50 per square foot, including utilities and services.

Right now, the building is almost completely gutted. Derington said the idea is to offer prospective tenants a wide array of options.

"When we're finished gutting the building and cleaning it all up, it's going to be very similar inside to a new building with regards to just an empty shell, so the tenants will have the same options they would have leasing a new office building shell," he said.

"A lot of times people will go into an older building like that and they'll try to salvage all the interior partitions and cores and just remodel around them whereas we decided we were going to completely gut the building clear back to the structure and give maximum flexibility that way."

Eoff said he feels this adds to the building's attractiveness.

"If (prospective tenants) want to sit down and go over how they want their offices laid out ... then we could work with the tenants," he said.

Part of the remodeling, Derington added, is to improve on the exterior as well.

"We're really trying to update the exterior of the building without completely changing the character of it," Derington said. He also said they're "modernizing the building" with more energy-efficient materials and equipment, including new exterior walls with higher insulation values and a new heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system.

Another goal of the project is to increase the number of parking spaces from about 70 to 100, which Derington said a complete renovation of the grounds will accomplish.

"When we're finished, he said, "we'll end up with about 30 additional parking spaces and yet not reduce the greenspace on the project."

The life of the building began in 1972, when it was constructed as an extended stay hotel, Eoff said. Later, it was turned into a health care facility owned and operated by Lenox Health Care until late 1998. The Eoffs and Deringtons purchased it last April.

Although the building was vacant, Eoff said the medical equipment and supplies used by Lenox still remained. Rather than destroying them in the renovation process, he wanted to put them to use.

With the help of Clifford Beauchamp, that vision became reality. Beauchamp, who is retired and lives in Strafford, arranges these types of medical donations to organizations in need.

"We donated all of the (medical equipment and supplies) out of the interior to local and worldwide organizations," Eoff said, like Viet/Aid, Hospital Vicente D'Antioni, Lake Country Rehabilitation, Southwest Center for Independent Living, First Assembly of God, First Southern Baptist Church and the Springfield Victory Mission.

Beauchamp said a total of approximately $200,000 of medical goods were donated from the building.

"Everything in that place was in very good condition, they just closed it, took the records and left," Beauchamp said. "I was instrumental in contacting these people."

Benefiting from his work locally was Lake County Rehabilitation, which received five truckloads of office equipment like desks, filing cabinets and chairs, delivered by local movers Two Men and a Truck; Southwest Indepen-dent Living, which received more than $12,000 worth of handicap lift bars; First Assemblies of God, which received about $1,700 of goods; and Springfield Victory Mission, which received a complete kitchen.

"I do it for the fun of it," Beauchamp said of his work.

Nationally, he said, Viet/Aid in Arizona an organization that focuses on assisting Vietnamese with medical supplies received 110 beds and mattresses and 40 walkers, which were then shipped to India. Beauchamp said the beds replaced World War I era beds there.

Also, Hospital Vicente D'Antioni in Honduras received two large commercial stainless steel washers valued at more than $20,000, he said.

"(Beauchamp) donates his time ... to getting stuff put together in the United States and sending it all over the world, and he came in and helped us out doing that. It was a pretty good deal." Eoff said.