Marx asking for $250,000 for improvements to Sears building

QUINCY — Quincy developer Tom Marx has told city officials it will take about $2.5 million in site improvements for him to entice a retail business to locate in the vacant Sears portion of the Quincy Town Center.

Marx is requesting $250,000 from the Mid-Town Business District fund to go toward those renovations. This is the same process his company used in developing the northeast corner of 30th and Broadway, beginning in 2022 with the construction of 6,000 square feet of retail space that house Verizon, Pancheros and, in the future, Jersey Mike’s.

The Mid-Town Business District, formed in March 2021, places a 1 percent retail sales tax on businesses in an area bordered by Broadway, College, 30^th Street and 36^th Street. That fund will have $260,000 in it by November, when Marx wishes to tap into it.

The first expenditure of Mid-Town Business District funds was a $100,000 to Cullinan Properties for the replacement of the roof on the Quincy Medical Group building at the Quincy Town Center.

City Planner Chuck Bevelheimer said the retailer, who has yet to be named publicly, hopes to be open by Black Friday, or the Friday after Thanksgiving which is recognized as the busiest retail shopping day of the year.

Sears closed its Quincy location in August 2018. There are about a dozen Sears stores remaining in the country, mostly in California.

The City’s Finance Committee approved sending Marx’s request to the full City Council. Committee Chairman Mike Rein said he believed that Marx had brought in a majority of the recent businesses who are paying into the fund so it make sense to allow him to tap into it again.

Marx, a long-time commercial real estate developer, owns several properties in Quincy, as well as Jacksonville, Hannibal, Mo., and Keokuk, Iowa.