Five large buildings are for sale along the Hay Street and Person Street corridor in downtown Fayetteville — including the former Prince Charles Hotel — and a sixth one, the former AIT Building, was almost sold in March.
Downtown properties for sale include:
Farther down Person Street, separate from the traditional downtown building frontage but still in the downtown vicinity, a former Kimbrell’s Furniture building is for sale. The 26,388-square-foot building is listed for $1.827 million.
As downtown Fayetteville continues its effort to grow, the sales are a good sign, said real estate agent Patrick Murray of Grant-Murray Real Estate. Grant-Murray is handling the sales of the Lawyers Building and the Baggett family’s two buildings.
“A lot of this is kind of positive trends, that people have either redeveloped property, [or] leased property,” Murray said. “Or, like with the Baggetts, it’s time for somebody else to finish the vision for the property.”
The Baggetts have long planned for their Huske buildings to grow with more tenants and residential space, co-owner Joe Baggett said.
The sales price per square foot for downtown properties has risen 41% since January 2014, said Robert Van Geons, head of the Fayetteville Cumberland County Economic Development Corporation. It went from about $104 to $141, he said. Van Geons was citing data from CoStar Realty Information Inc., an online database of real estate information from across the U.S.
When buildings go on the market, “it’s an opportunity to bring in a new wave,” said Bianca Shoneman, the president and CEO of the Cool Spring Downtown District. “Downtowns have their ebbs and their flows, and we’re certainly in an ebb right now, and we’re looking forward to the flow that follows that.”
The Prince Charles: It’s for sale, and it’s getting a bodega
Prince Charles Holdings is putting the 59-unit Residences at Prince Charles apartment building at 450 Hay St. — the former Prince Charles Hotel building — on the market, said Jordan Jones, one of the partners in that project.
The sale will help Jones and his partners pursue their plans to build the 212-unit Stadium View Lofts apartment building, he said. This is to be built on top of the neighboring parking deck at 466 Hay St.
Prince Charles Holdings bought the old Prince Charles hotel in 2015 and rehabbed it into apartments in a $19.3 million project, Jones’ website says. The apartments opened in June 2019.
In addition to 59 apartments, the Prince Charles building has space for five retail tenants. Jones said the building is 100% leased.
“We will announce our next two commercial tenants later this year, one of which is a downtown fresh food bodega,” he said.
Jones described the planned sale of the Prince Charles building as “bittersweet.”
“You see, I was born and raised in Fayetteville. I grew up about 3 miles from the Prince Charles,” which he said his great-great grandfather built. It opened in 1924.
“While I would love to own the property in perpetuity, my partners and I are focused on Stadium View Lofts to try and keep the momentum in downtown Fayetteville going,” Jones said.
Developers in general have had trouble advancing projects in recent years because lenders and institutional investors are “not financing projects today at the same terms as a few years ago,” Jones said.
“Stadium View Lofts is a $60 million project that involves expensive high-rise construction which is forcing us to continue to get creative to find a path to move it forward as soon as possible,” he said.
Joe and Ben Baggett’s ancestor, Benjamin R. Huske, opened his hardware store on the 400 block of Hay Street in the early 1900s, Joe Baggett said.
After downtown Fayetteville declined in the 1970s and 1980s as retailers moved out, Joe and Ben’s parents, Joseph Baggett and Hannah Huske Baggett in June 1997 opened Huske Hardware House in the family’s old building. It was the city’s first brew pub — a place where beer is brewed on the premises — and it was one of the pioneer businesses in efforts to revitalize the downtown area.
The family also owns the five-story office building next door, which has retail shops on its ground floor.
The Baggetts had big plans for the restaurant building and the office building, Joe Baggett said. This included retail and office space, and upstairs apartments or condos.
They made improvements, such as putting in plumbing for residential space, but never got as far as they hoped, Joe Baggett said. Now the properties are ready for a new owner to move forward, he said.
Meanwhile, the Baggetts decided not to renew the lease for Team Collins H3X, the company that operated the restaurant. Huske Hardware House closed this past weekend and the Baggetts took back the space on April 15, Murray said. This also included the taproom next door to the main restaurant.
“Things didn’t work out, let’s put it that way,” Baggett said. The restaurant and brew pub “just needed more energy and financial backing to do the items that needed to be done in the building. And it’s time for a change and some new energy. And you know, it’s all about trying to make it move forward, and that was getting stagnant.”
Despite being a brew pub, the restaurant had not used its brewing equipment for the past several years, he said.
Baggett on Thursday said he has several potential new tenants he is considering for the brew pub. He was hopeful the new tenant could begin operating in about three months.
Property details:
A year after buying the largely vacant AIT Building on Hay Street and Maiden Lane, for $2.24 million, new owners World Class ROI of Houston and Smooth Ruckus LLC of Sheridan, Wyoming, came close to auctioning it off in late March for $3 million, said Sam McGrath, one of the partners in the project.
The deal fell through. Now McGrath and his partners are continuing efforts to get tenants.
They came close last year to landing a tenant that needed space for about 200 workers, McGrath said, and he is still waiting to see what the company plans to do.
Meanwhile, the building remains home to Advanced Internet Technologies and The Stadium Event Center. Sol’s Arcade + Taproom plans to open there in May.
Property details:
The Fayetteville Public Works Commission opened the Robert C. Williams Business Center at 201 Hay St. in 2000. The office building served for a time as the customer service center for the city-owned electric, water and sewer utility service.
The PWC decided in 2021 to put the building on the market. It’s been listed for $5.9 million.
The PWC advertised last summer it had received a bid of $5.1 million, and it was open to bidders who wanted to offer more.
A bid was recently withdrawn, PWC spokesman Lamont Hinson told CityView, and the building is still for sale. It’s listed by Franklin Johnson Commercial Real Estate.
Property details:
The five-story Lawyers Building on the Market House Square has been vacant for some time. Some of its ground-floor windows are boarded up. Paperwork taped to the front door says the window glass is being replaced because the old glass was too small for the window frames.
“Built in 1916, it holds a special place as Fayetteville's inaugural skyscraper and is listed on the National Register,” says its advertising listing. The listing says it “requires a comprehensive upfit across all floors.”
Market House Investors LLC of Willow City, Texas, owns the property.
Property details:
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
This story was made possible by contributions to CityView News Fund, a 501c3 charitable organization committed to an informed democracy.
