GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Plans to revive the long-vacant Keeler Building downtown have been abandoned after the developer who wanted to restore it failed to come to terms with its owner.
Don Shoemaker, managing partner with Franklin Partners, said his contract to buy the 102-year-old building from owner James Azzar expired without a closing.
The property currently is listed for $12.25 million with G.W. DeHaan Real Estate Inc. Listing broker Don Oppenhuizen said the listing has generated "lots of inquiries" since it was posted several weeks ago.
Shoemaker had planned to invest at least $10 million into the seven-story building when he signed the purchase contract in January. Shoemaker said the building could be converted to apartments, or restored as an office building.
With 160,000 square feet, the Keeler Building was originally built as a furniture show building in which local manufacturers leased showroom space for the city's annual furniture expositions. Exhibitors included local manufacturers like Baker Furniture Co, Herman Miller Inc. and Kindel Furniture Co.
Shoemaker said he was not able to negotiate an extension of his purchase contract with Azzar. He said he was hoping to get a tenant for at least 40 percent of the building before finalizing the purchase.
The Chicago-based investment group also needed more time to find enough parking for tenants who would occupy the building, which has no on-site parking, Shoemaker said.
Meanwhile, Franklin Partners will continue to pursue development plans for another large building it owns at 1340 Monroe Avenue NW, Shoemaker said. They are leaning toward redeveloping the old factory into apartments after the current tenant, Display Pack LLC, vacates the building early next year, he said.
Azzar, who bought the Keeler Building in 1995, put the property up for sale last summer after Kent County announced it would sell its office building across the street at 82 Ionia Ave. NW for $10 million to the Kendall College of Art and Design and Ferris State University. That deal also collapsed in July when Ferris withdrew its offer.
Meanwhile, the future of the Keeler Building remains in flux. The real estate company that marketed the building in 2015 is not listing the property anymore.
In 2014, the city placed cyclone fencing barriers around the building after a pedestrian sued the city over injuries from a hole in the sidewalk. The fences also protected pedestrians from bricks that were falling on the sidewalk.
Except for a video game arcade that closed in December, 2015, the Keeler Building has been vacant for more than 20 years. It remains the last large office building in the downtown area that has not been renovated.
In 1941, the building was converted to offices, many of which were leased to the federal government during World War II.
Over the years, the building's offices were leased to the Michigan Bell Telephone Co., its largest tenant, Western Union, and radio station WLAV, whose old transmitting tower still sits atop the building.
In 1958, the building was sold to Tishman Realtors and Construction of New York. Two years later, it was sold to another New York group.
In 1980, fast-growing Amway Corp. bought the building with plans to move at least 100 employees downtown. Earlier that year, Amway also bought the 12-story Peoples Building one block away at the northeast corner of Ionia Avenue and Monroe Center NW.
Amway never followed through on its plans to move staff downtown, instead selling the buildings in 1984 to United Development Management Co., a Chicago firm entering the Grand Rapids market. United also built the Eastbank Waterfront Towers, which was later acquired by Amway and renamed Plaza Towers.
United began investing in the building and renamed it Two Fountain Place, but lost control of the nearly vacant building to a Dallas-based partnership in 1995, which evicted the building's remaining business tenants.
Ellis Parking Co. then bought the building for $260,000 and tried to get permission to demolish the building for a parking lot. The request was blocked by the city's Historic Preservation Commission, which declared the building had historic and architectural significance worth preserving.