Key restaurant properties sold in downtown Durham with million-dollar price tags
This story was updated March 5, 2020, at 3:40 p.m.
Two pieces of prime real estate in downtown Durham were sold a few days apart for millions of dollars.
The property sales, made in the past week, have given the popular restaurant Parker and Otis a new landlord and forced another restaurant, Piedmont, to unexpectedly close.
The Charlotte-based investment firm Arcos Properties closed on the purchase of a strip of businesses and an adjacent building at 323 and 401 Foster St., near Durham’s Central Park for $9.8 million.
The sale price is nearly double what it sold for three years ago, according to county records.
The firm’s investments mostly have been in Washington, D.C., but the firm had been watching Durham for properties, said Andy Ross, principal of Arcos Properties.
“The location’s undeniably good,” Ross said. “One of the things we’re attracted to is the underlying zoning. This is a longer-term play for the company.”
The News & Observer previously reported that the property’s sale caused Piedmont, one of the city’s best-known restaurants, to close.
According to one of the restaurant owners, the new owners canceled the restaurant’s remaining six years on their lease. Their last day of service was Feb. 22.
“The Piedmont situation was a difficult one to navigate in the midst of a sale,” Ross said. “I’m very familiar with them, being a Durham native .... with Piedmont’s history and success since 2010.”
Ross said the decision to take over Piedmont’s lease, forcing owners to leave, was a “difficult decision for all parties involved.” He did not disclose further details.
Rise Biscuits, EVOKE Studio Architecture, Triangle Biotechnology Center and Urban Durham Realty are located on the property.
No tenants are lined up for the space vacated by Piedmont, he said. Ross said there are no immediate plans to redevelop the space. Changes to the property will be driven by future tenants, he said.
Peabody Place
The Peabody Place retail building on South Duke and Peabody streets in the Brightleaf District sold for $7 million to Charlotte-based real estate investment firm Asana Partners, The Triangle Business Journal first reported.
Parker and Otis and Isley Hawkins Architecture are located there.
Asana Partners previously bought the nearby Brightleaf Square for $39 million last December along with properties near the site of the 2019 gas explosion that leveled and damaged several buildings.
Josh Beaver, vice president of The Nichols Company who arranged the Peabody Place sale, said that it is too early to comment on Asana Partner’s plans for the property.
This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
