LRC Opportunity Fund closes 100,000 s/f deal

LRC Opportunity Fund, LLC has closed the deal on 227 Fayetteville St. Formerly the regional headquarters of Wachovia Bank, 227 is a vacant, 10-story high-rise office building located in the downtown area. The building has 100,000 s/f of rental space, as well as retail frontage on the two main streets of Fayetteville St. and South Wilmington St. 227 has mid-century modern design featuring exterior marble columns with steel and glass detailing. LRC will begin work immediately to renovate, restore and upgrade the building. Work will include asbestos removal, construction, and upgrading the building to green, LEED certification with state-of-the-art telecommunications and cloud connectivity. "We purchased the 227 building to transform it into the upscale Class A office building that is needed in the booming downtown Raleigh office market. The building has a sought-after location - in close proximity to the state Capital, County Courthouse and new Redhat and Citrix buildings, and nearby the newly opened Convention/Civic Center and residential units under development. With the surge in entrepreneurial businesses looking for space in downtown Raleigh, we expect 227 Fayetteville to be one of the most sought after office complexes in the city. Equally as important, this property, like all of our properties, will provide a strong return on investment for our investors," said Howard Lavitt, principal and co-founder of LRC Opportunity Fund, LLC. LRC plans to hire many local companies to work on the project. To date, LRC has retained Solutions PDM as manager for the demolition and construction project; Phillips Architecture for the construction drawings and demolition plan, and Alliance Architecture of Durham for the building design and branding. Property Resources of Raleigh has been retained to market the space to tenants. LRC expects the work to be completed by the end of the third quarter of 2013, with tenants able to move into the building in early 2014. LRC also owns the Brier Creek Medical Pavilion building in northwest Raleigh. In addition, it owns other North Carolina properties, including The Tranquil Court mixed-use building in Charlotte and the 500,000 s/f Madison Park corporate park in Winston-Salem.