Insurer's exit provides premium space downtown.

• Position: Triad

Trying to keep track of who owns the company once called Integon Corp. is like trying to win a shell game. But at least you always knew where to find it: the corner of Fifth and Spruce streets in downtown Winston-Salem. Now that's about to change, too. The automobile insurer is leaving its longtime headquarters, an iconic if not particularly attractive building, for an office park on the north side of the city next year.

Integon was originally a division of Security Life and Trust Co., founded in Greensboro in 1920. In 1969, it became a separate holding company, specializing in coverage for high-risk drivers. But it ran into financial trouble in 1997, when claims soared and profits collapsed, and was bought by GMAC, then the finance arm of Detroit-based General Motors Co., which changed the insurer's name to GMAC Insurance. GM sold GMAC in 2006 to a private-equity firm, which split the insurance and finance businesses, and in 2009, the insurer was sold again, to American Capital Acquisition Corp., a financial-services holding company in New York. A GMAC sign may still grace the building, but it's now marketed as National General Insurance. It employs about 700 locally, down from more than 1,000 in 2006 and well below what would efficiently fill its current space of about 500,000 square feet. Officials told the Winston-Salem Journal that American Capital's need is now closer to 120,000 square feet.

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Jason Thiel, executive director of Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership, is glad the insurer is staying in town but admits that backfilling the building will be a challenge. Still, the company line among Thiel and other downtown recruiters is that the vacant space is great inventory that will lure other businesses. It is in a good location and has plenty of parking, they say.

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