Century-old building in Charlotte’s North End under contract to sell to local developer

A Charlotte real estate developer is under contract to buy a century-old North End manufacturing building from a Texas developer who has been redeveloping the property over the past few years.

Browder Group Real Estate is planning to close on the sale with Austin, Texas-based Artesia Real Estate Investments in early May, Matt Browder confirmed exclusively to The Charlotte Observer. Browder runs his company with business partner Brandon Brown.

The 125,000 square foot building called Foundation Supply is located at 1801 N. Tryon St., across the street from the Amtrak station. Artesia was planning for the majority of the site to be office.

Browder declined to disclose the terms of the sale, including price. Browder also said it’s too early to discuss his plans for the property. Most of Browder’s previous projects around Charlotte have involved redeveloping and readapting older buildings.

Artesia Real Estate has enjoyed contributing to the growth along North Tryon Street, founder Colin Brothers said in a statement shared with the Observer.

“We continue to be active in this part of town, and are eager to see what the new ownership has in store,” Brothers said.

GO DEEPER: Is North End the new South End? The latest corner of Charlotte facing growth pressure

What the pending sale means for the future of office and retail leasing is not clear. The pandemic has shifted the way companies make decisions around bringing employees back and how much office space they need.

Office vacancy rates were up in multiple submarkets of Charlotte last year compared with the start of 2020, according to data from CoStar Group, a real estate research firm. That includes uptown, which had a vacancy rate of about 13% at the end of last year compared with about 6% two years prior.

History on the building

In November 2018, Artesia purchased the building for $8.8 million, according to Mecklenburg County property records. Since then, it has been transforming the space for office and retail and possibly a restaurant or brewery. The property has remained vacant, with no leases signed.

Last year, the firm’s work earned a design award in adaptive reuse from the Carolinas chapter of the International Interior Design Association.

Artesia worked to keep the integrity of the building intact, the IIDA wrote in a post about the award.

“The end result is a diamond in the rough, with a ton of character, that is sure to drive future development in the area,” the group wrote about the building rehab.

The building used to be home to around 120 tenants when it was called the City North Business Center. The tenants were forced to leave for redevelopment, the Observer reported in 2019.

Today, Foundation Supply is split into two roughly 60,000 square foot buildings. In the east building, by North Tryon Street and Keswick Avenue, Artesia had 40,000 square feet of office and 20,000 square feet of retail. The west building was planned entirely for office.

Artesia split the building into some smaller suites. It had seen some interest from creative-type companies like marketing and engineering firms, David McCuiston of Artesia has previously told the Observer.

North End seeing tons of growth

North End is the latest corner of Charlotte facing growth pressure as investors and developers purchase land for a variety of projects, including apartments, breweries and office buildings. Located a mile from uptown, the 5.6-square-mile collection of eight neighborhoods has never seen a level of investment like what’s to come over the next several years, the Observer reported last year.

As of last year, there were about 3,600 apartments coming to North End, either under construction, approved, pending approval or being planned.

One of the biggest projects in North End is Queens Park Commons, a mixed-use development on North Tryon Street, not far from the Foundation Supply building. Tony Kuhn’s Flywheel Group is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to build apartments and other mixed-use buildings.

About the Charlotte developer

Browder Group is active on the west side of Charlotte, including on Thrift Road. Most of its projects are redeveloping older, sometimes formerly industrial buildings into new uses. Some notable projects include Noble Smoke on Freedom Drive and the Rhino Market & Deli on West Morehead Street.

The company owns multiple properties in North End, property records show.

Adjacent to Foundation Supply, Browder owns a 1-acre triangular piece of land that fronts North Tryon Street. The developer has a land development permit for a Starbucks to come to the vacant site, Browder said. Browder hopes to have a building constructed by the end of the year, at which point Starbucks would upfit the space.

Browder Group sees plenty of development coming out of uptown, along North Brevard and North Davidson streets, especially thanks to the light rail line being built. The same growth hasn’t occurred along North Tryon Street. There are some barriers to growth, including Interstate 277 and other properties.

But he believes some of that growth is spilling over from the NoDa neighborhood, near Matheson Street, farther north.

“It’s almost like you’re filling in the gaps but you’re filling them in from different directions,” Browder said.

He sees a lot of potential in the older industrial buildings, with an opportunity to make the area more dense.