Former Wells Fargo tower in uptown Charlotte finally sold. Here’s what to know
The sale of a prominent uptown office tower has been completed. And renovations of the building may include a housing component.
The former Two Wells Fargo Center, now called 301 S. Tryon St. for its location, switched hands from Wells Fargo to Singerman Real Estate LLC and Riverside Investment & Development, the Chicago-based duo announced Thursday.
The 3.4-acre complex, which includes two office buildings, a glass atrium, plaza and parking garage, sold for $36.5 million, according to Mecklenburg County records. County tax assessments value the building at over $204 million.
The complex, bound by South Tryon, South College and East Third streets and East Martin Luther King Boulevard, was the former home of Wells Fargo. In 2023, the bank decided to consolidate all its employees into Three Wells Fargo Center and 550 Tryon St., the former Duke Energy building. (That’s the building with the giant sign.)
With the consolidation, Wells Fargo put the building on the market and Riverside, along with Singerman scooped it up.
It’s a building Tony Scacco, President of Riverside, has been eying for years, mainly from a redevelopment perspective. While it’s unclear what Riverside will do to the building, or how much it will cost, the plan seems to include residential, hospitality, retail and commercial space.
Those assets, Scacco said in a news release, are undersupplied in the high-quality buildings and in high-demand areas. “We see 301 S. Tryon as an opportunity to help close that supply gap,” Scacco said.
The redevelopment may start in 2028.
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Office space in uptown and around Charlotte
If 301 S. Tryon moves into the residential space, it would join a list of office towers converting into apartments.
The office-to-apartment conversion is part of the latest wave of older office buildings trying to compete for viability against newer buildings in Charlotte and on a national scale.
For example, the tower at 400 S. Tryon St., the former Wachovia Center, is in the process of being converted into apartments and a hotel, according to a land development construction plan permit filed with the city of Charlotte.
The conversions to residential space help lower the office vacancy rate, which in previous quarters reached alarming highs.
For the first quarter of the year, Charlotte’s office vacancy rate sat at just over 24%, according to a Cushman & Wakefield report. The agency includes suburban markets in its total.
Uptown towers have a rate of almost 25%, according to the report.
It’s unclear what the office vacancy rate is for 301 S. Tyron. But the building has over 800,000 square feet of commercial office space, more than 30,000 square feet of retail and a 540-space garage.
Plenty of new jobs or residents could fit the space.
