WICHITA — A historic Wichita property is back on the market.
The art deco Marquee Motorcars building on East Douglas just west of Hillside is listed for $525,000 with Grant Glasgow of Grubb & Ellis/Martens Commercial Group.
The building first was home to Allen Grocery in 1930.
In 2005, businessman Jim Collins bought the building for his Marquee Motorcars, which sold premium pre-owned vehicles and vintage cars.
At the time, Collins told Have You Heard? he’d had his eye on the building for years hoping to display cars there.
“I know it may sound a little hokey, but it’s the truth,” he said.
Before his 2008 death, Collins succeeded in getting the building on state and national historic registries.
“It was his baby,” says Collins’ widow, Jane. “He loved the labor of meticulously redoing and restoring the building.”
Mechanic Johnathan Goodwin, who is best known for converting singer Neil Young’s 1959 Lincoln Continental into an electric car, had been leasing space at the building and this spring said he had plans to return.
“It’s just not in my cards right now,” says Goodwin, who now operates out of two facilities in El Dorado.
Jane Collins says she doesn’t want to be in the property management business, nor does she have another use for the building.
“I have a job I love, and I don’t have the entrepreneurial spirit that Jim had,” she says.
Glasgow says the Marquee building, with its large windows and plentiful light, would be a great home for designers or something art related.
“It’s a great showroom for a lot of different things,” he says.
“Anybody who really likes nostalgia and just cool buildings, this is it.”