From office to high-end showroom: Inside developer’s plans for vacant Raleigh building
A vacant office building is slated to become a high-end car showroom in fast-growing northeast Raleigh.
New Hope Center, a one-story, 66,040-square-foot building at 4101 Capital Blvd., this week was sold to Westgate Cars, a locally based, luxury-car dealership with a half dozen locations around the Triangle.
The price tag: $7.25 million, according to CBRE, which brokered the deal on behalf of the seller, Strategic Government Properties.
New Hope Center sits on roughly six acres, with access to major thoroughfares like Capital Boulevard and Interstates 440 and 540. Built in 1984 as a multi-tenant flex property, it was later converted into an office for the IT Division of the N.C. Department of Transportation (NCDOT).
After leasing the property for more than 20 years, NCDOT left the building in February. Staff relocated to Century Center B at 1020 Birch Ridge Drive in Raleigh.
“The move was done to save money,” NCDOT spokesperson Jamie Kritzer said. “Century Center is owned by NCDOT and the agency’s IT support staff did not need all the space at New Hope Center anymore.”
What closed the deal?
In this post-pandemic era of hybrid work and surging interest rates, vacancy rates — both nationally and in the Triangle — are at record highs
The total sales value for the top 50 office deals dipped by 67% year-over-year to reach $8.7 billion, according to CommericalCafe’s newest report.
In Raleigh-Durham, direct vacancy rose to 15%, according to CBRE Research’s 2023 fourth-quarter market report. Overall vacancy rose to 19%, the highest level since 2004, the report said.
Despite these challenges, New Hope Center remained an attractive prospect for investors because of its “location-driven assets,” said CBRE associate Chandler Hawkins in a release.
“[It’s] also indicative of the trend of capital chasing smaller deal sizes given the current high-interest-rate environment,” he said.
Westgate said plans are still being finalized, but the showroom is expected to include an event space.
This story was originally published March 11, 2024 at 3:33 PM.
