Monday, August 27, 2007

Heers Building Agreement

Passed unanimously

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is nice that everyone agrees on this item. I guess it is over now....

We just need to stand back and watch the money roll in, and along with that, watch the cars roll into the parking ramp. Pretty soon we will not be able to park downtown from all the traffic.

Who owned the Heers building before all this stupidity?

With each project over one million dollars the City is involved in, there needs to be a private accounting firm hired to watch where the money comes from and where it goes.

Like the "I will build it" JQH ballpark, it charges MSU about $400,000 a year for the team to play there. This is/ was simply a tax on MSU parents...

Anonymous said...

I caught Monday night's love fest with the developer at the city council meeting... almost seemed inappropriate to stick around, as it looked like a romantic interlude was developing... of course, at least one other major downtown property owner frenched both city and developer, pointing out a rennovated Heer's would be so good for "the whole city"... whatever...

Of course, it's good news the city unloaded Heer's, and we need to hope for the best with it...

What would really be good for the whole city would be getting our police fully staffed, so maybe they could decrease gang activity and drug availability in Springfield schools...

Anonymous said...

Hey all! Just thought I'd share something about Heer's and the current building's ownership.

The Heer-Andres building was built by the Heer-Andres Investment Co. in 1915 (F.X. Heer was President of this company until his death in 1949 and was succeded by his son Dorsey Heer until his death in 1963). It remained in the company's possesion until 1987 when Janet Boswell's investment company bought it. They sold the building and business to Kline Bros. of Cinnicinatti in 1990 due to Bankruptcy and in 1995 Kline sold the building to Warren Davis Properties for $1,000,000. Davis Properties owned the building until 2004? when Proste bought it from Davis for $3,000,000.

Hope this clears things up.

Jackie Melton said...

Thank you for stopping in and posting information about the Heer's building history to the point of Prost's taking ownership, Mr. Seigmann.

I'm not sure what you mean by "clearing things up," most of the discussion that has taken place here at JackeHammer has had to do with events happening between the city and Prost and post Prost.

Did you have any comments to share with readers post Prost's signing away of ownership to the city in December of 2006 and the situation surrounding that event?

Prost spent over 2 years time and at least $1.5 million of his own money on the Heers building redevelopment. I'm not trying to dredge up "sour grapes," here, but it disappoints me that the city tossed him aside in the manner they did when he finally got a committment from a lender to continue redevelopment. I'd love for you to share your comments on that aspect.

I don't think anyone was opposed to the city council authorizing the city manager to execute the sale agreement between the city and McGowan/Walsh, everyone that I know agrees it was the only thing the city could do at this point.

The question is (yeah, sour grapes) what caused the city to make some of the decisions made along the way? The snowball started rolling downhill when the city made the decision to guarantee $1.5 million to Great Southern Bank, who held the mortgage on the Heers building, and there were other decisions deserving of a bit of scrutiny during and after that decision was made.

Your comments are valuable as a part of the history of Heers but they fall short of revealing the whole history. As a historian, I'd love to be privy to your comments on the rest of the story and I'm sure readers of this blog would be, as well.

Looking to the future promise of the Heers building is great! Keep up the good work! Looking to past mistakes is also a worthy endeavor. There are things we can learn there too.

Jackie Melton said...

Geesh, in that last comment it looks like I was claiming to be a historian. I meant Mr. Seigmann, not myself.

Anonymous said...

I just took a tour of the Heers Building last week. It looks like it is going to fall down. The inside is full of MOLD! The weather has now entered the building, and all the original wood floors are now ruined. The Garden Room is gone,and water is leaking everywhere, the basement is filling up with water also. There is a big hole in the roof, approxiately 30ft X 30ft, causing many problems. This hole in the roof is taking in alot of water with all the storms we have had. The City has to do something before this landmark is beyond repair at all. Someone is being LAZY!

Anonymous said...

So where is Janet Boswell now?