The four-story Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester has been listed for sale.

Thomas Grillo
Real Estate Editor- Boston Business Journal

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Roughly two months after the Higgins Armory Museum closed its doors in Worcester, the four-story building in the city’s Greendale section has been listed for sale.

The sale includes the 42,000-square-foot distinctive, steel-and-glass building at 100 Barber Ave., as well as an adjacent 4.5-acre parcel. The properties, which are included among the National Register of Historic Places, are assessed at $13.6 million.

A year ago, museum trustees voted to shutter the facility after years of financial struggles. The museum’s annual budget of $1.3 million has had deficits ranging between $500,000 and nearly $1 million, according to tax filings. Unable to raise enough cash to balance the budget and unwilling to sell off portions of the collection to stay open, museum officials decided to transfer its collection to the Worcester Art Museum.

John Woodman Higgins, an industrialist who owned the Worcester Pressed Steel Co., opened the museum in 1931 to display his growing collection of historical armor. During its 83-year history, the museum housed what was considered one of the largest collections of battle arms and armor in the United States.

Museum officials hired CBRE/New England to handle the sale of the historic building and the accompanying land. They said the property has a variety of potential uses including office, lab and residential.

Timothy Murray, president and CEO of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, said the museum site has great potential for a mixed-use development in a section of the city that offers easy access to Routes 190 and 290.

“It’s a great location and it’s a prominent building that sits high above Worcester,” he said. ‘The bones of the building are great, it has lots of nice features, there’s parking and the possibilities are endless.”