The brick building at the southwest corner of MacArthur Boulevard and South Grand Avenue is about to change hands for the first time.
The office building at 1028 South Grand Ave. W. was built for Standard Mutual Insurance Company in the late 1950s. Evans Construction served as the general contractor and also oversaw construction of a south addition in the late 1980s that doubled the size of the building. It now spans 25,062 square feet over two floors and a lower level.
In 2016, Standard Mutual was sold to National General Insurance Company, which then leased the building for six years. After National General vacated the property it was listed for sale with Bill Marriott, a broker with the Real Estate Group.
An online auction for the property is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. Monday, Sept. 15, and conclude at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 17. In addition to the office building, the sale includes the parking lot directly east of the building and a grass lot to the west, zoned S-2 for commercial use.
The property owner, Mark Roberts III, previously worked in the family business along with his father and grandfather and now owns and operates GoWeb1, a web development business headquartered a few blocks away on South Grand Avenue.
“I have the reserve set very low for a prime location building and it’s priced to sell,” Roberts said. “We received estimates ranging between $400 and $600 a square foot to build this type of construction. That’s just the construction cost alone, not including the land.”
While Roberts can’t disclose the reserve price, he said it is a “tiny fraction” of the cost of new construction and even lower than the assessed market value, according to Sangamon County tax records.
Although it has always been used as an office building, Roberts said he believes it is a versatile property, especially given its location at a high-traffic intersection.
“There have been many suggestions about conversion to multifamily residential,” he said. “I think that would be great, and from my understanding it’s in high demand in Springfield. There have also been concepts of converting it into an event center, furniture store, nonprofit or learning center.”
Roberts said he looks forward to seeing someone redevelop the property.
“It’s hard to see it go, but I am excited to see what the future can hold for this property,” he said.