Erwin Square Plaza in Downtown Durham Changes Hands

by Adriana Pop, Associate Editor

In a $37.5 million deal, Federal Capital Partners of Maryland has acquired the 10-story Erwin Square Plaza office building in downtown Durham from National Asset Services Inc. of Los Angeles. Ben Kilgore at CBRE represented the seller in the transaction.

Located at 2200 West Main Street in the master-planned Erwin Square Development, the property offers 215,048 square feet of office space, as well as 23,744 square feet of retail and a four-level parking deck. Duke University and Duke University Health System-related companies and organizations are among the building’s tenants, which has a current occupancy rate of 96.2 percent.

“Erwin Square Plaza is of very high quality and is well-located in downtown Durham, which has seen enormous growth and revitalization in the last 10 years. The Durham CBD is experiencing healthy demand for office space, and the property has maintained a 95 percent+ occupancy since 2007. We look forward to renovating the property back to its institutional-grade potential and repositioning the important retail portion of the property,” FCP Managing Partner, Esko Korhonen said in a statement.

Federal Capital Partners now has controlling interest in or has provided financing for more than 350,000 square feet of commercial space and nearly 2,000 apartments in the Triangle area. This includes the 156-unit West Village community currently under construction in downtown Durham.

In other news, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina is expanding its Durham campus on University Drive with the acquisition of two office buildings.

According to the NewsObserver, the company has purchased University Place 4 and University Place 5 for a combined $10 million. Together, the properties offer approximately 100,000 square feet of space. The new acquisitions will enable Blue Cross to relocate its operations from the current headquarters in Chapel Hill to Durham by next year.

Blue Cross is North Carolina’s largest insurer, with more than 4,000 employees across the state. The company now owns about 560,000 square feet in eight buildings at its University Place corporate campus in Durham.

Photo credits: CBRE