Edwardsville real estate development firm buys former ShopKo property for $1.8 million

QUINCY — A real estate development firm in Edwardsville has bought the former ShopKo property at 3200 Broadway for $1.8 million.

Documents filed in the Adams County Recorder of Deeds office show the sale was finalized Dec. 16. RLP Development Company, Inc., in Edwardsville was listed as the buyer.

Jaime Eads, a project manager with RLP Development, says the company has “no plans to do anything at the moment” with the 7.2-acre commercial property.

“An employee of one of our companies was up that way and mentioned the location,” said Ryan Darr, another project manager with RLP Development. “We thought we got it for a fair deal. Until we really decide what route to go with it or what the proper use of that facility is, we will just kind of sit on it.”

Robert L. Plummer founded RLP Development Company in Edwardsville in November 1988. Plummer has been a successful businessman in the Metro East area of St. Louis since he abandoned a teaching career and bought a defunct lumberyard in Staunton in 1977. He turned that lumberyard into R.P. Lumber, which has 61 locations in Illinois plus 25 other locations in Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Both Eads and Darr said the acquisition of the Broadway property by RLP Development doesn’t mean an RP Lumber will go into that location.

“We have a lot of retail shopping centers, but again we have no direct plans at the moment,” Eads said.

Plummer has developed thousands of homes in Edwardsville and other Illinois cities in the St. Louis area. He also owns shopping centers and office complexes, 

RLP Development says on its website it has extended its operations into the Illinois communities of Bethalto, Chatham, Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Godfrey, Granite City, Greenville, Highland, Staunton and Troy, as well as Troy, Mo. It began as a developer of residential home sites and lots, but the company has expanded into providing improvements for entire residential subdivisions, as well as commercial offices and professional and industrial parks.

The seller of the property at 3200 Broadway was listed as Quincy Holdings LLC, which has its principal place of business as The Battery Group, a Brooklyn, N.Y., real estate firm owned by Willy Beer and Charles Scharf.

ShopKo, a Wisconsin-based general merchandise retailer, announced in March 2019 it was liquidating its assets and closing all of its remaining locations (including the Quincy store) by mid-June 2019, according to a document filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

The most recent use of the ShopKo property was in September 2020 when the Adams County Health Department and Illinois Department of Public Health operated a drive-through COVID-19 testing site.

Quincy Mayor Mike Troup told Muddy River News earlier this month that negotiations are nearly complete for a big box retailer willing to spend $20 million to renovate and occupy the former Kmart building at 3701 Broadway.