The real estate development company Geifman Group has closed the deal on its purchase of the former Quad-City Times newspaper building in downtown Davenport.
Geifman leaders on Thursday, July 23, announced that the Bettendorf company has bought the 123,000-square-foot building at 500 E. 3rd St.
“We are excited to announce that the Geifman Group has acquired the iconic Quad-City Times Building in downtown Davenport. This landmark has been part of the Quad Cities’ history for generations, and we’re honored to play a role in its next chapter. Our vision is to thoughtfully transform the property into a premier multi-tenant commercial destination, creating a vibrant environment for businesses while preserving the significance of one of downtown’s most recognizable buildings,” company officials stated in a news release on social media.
The development company plans to eventually convert the former office building and printing plant into a multi-tenant commercial building. Company officials have not announced a timeline for work on the now vacant building.
“It’s about four and a half stories tall and we’re excited about what we can do with that,” Steve Geifman, the group’s president and managing partner, said about the former newspaper building in an interview this spring with the Quad Cities Regional Business Journal.
The building on East Third Street was home to the daily newspaper and its staff from 1989 until last December. At that time, the Quad-City Times moved to an office at 1033 7th St., East Moline. (Since then, the newspaper staff has moved to the Lee Enterprises headquarters building at 4600 E. 53rd St., Davenport. In the Quad Cities region, Lee is the publisher of the Quad-City Times, The Moline Dispatch, Rock Island Argus, and Muscatine Journal newspapers. It publishes more than 70 daily papers and 350 weekly and specialty publications serving 73 markets in 26 U.S. states. )
The former newspaper building was listed for sale a few months ago for $4.2 million by NAI Ruhl Commercial.
This is the property description on the Geifman Group’s website: “Coming soon to the Geifman Group is the iconic Quad-City Times building, ideally located along the riverfront in downtown Davenport. This building has around 123,000 square feet of space on over 6 acres. The building currently has almost 42,000 square feet of current office space and 81,000 square feet of warehouse/industrial space. With some ceilings as high as 50′, multiple access points and dock doors, the possibilities for this property are endless! Opportunities like this are rare.”
The new life for the old newspaper building also was a point of discussion during the recent Downtown Davenport Partnership annual meeting on June 25, where renderings were shown but no real details were announced.
The former Times building also will be one of the centers of attention this weekend. That’s because the building’s parking lot will host the thousands of people taking part in the Quad-City Times Bix 7 road race. Runners, walkers and fans will gather outside the building later today, Friday, July 24, after the Arconic Junior Bix and after the main Bix 7 race Saturday morning, July 25.
Bix 7 leaders announced in February that the Quad-City Times will continue as the title sponsor after race officials and the newspaper inked a 10-year sponsorship contract. The Quad-City Times has been the title sponsor of the Bix 7 race since 1981.
Geifman Group operates more than 80 commercial, industrial, and office rental spaces throughout the Iowa-Illinois Quad Cities area. In all, the company owns and/or manages more than 1 million square feet of commercial, industrial, office space, and farmland.
