WilmingtonBiz Magazine - 2019 Commerical Real Estate Issue

Wilmington B iz 2 0 1 9 c o m m e r c i a l r e a l e s tat e i s s u e

M A G A Z I N E

ON B ETS DOWNTOWN

JAMES GOODNIGHT

He’s rehabbed some of the city’s historic structures as outside investment continues to grow OCEANIC REBUILDS AFTER FLORENCE WHAT’S UP WITH CHUCK (SCHONINGER)

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Greater WWilmington G Published by

BUSINESS BUSINESS JOURNAL JOURNAL reater

ilmington

SPRING 2019

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR SOUND OFF BEHIND THE NUMBERS THE DIGEST C-SUITE CONVO THE TAKEAWAY

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COVER STORY: DOWNTOWN REDUX CHUCK SCHONINGER: NOT YOUR USUAL DEVELOPER IN PROFILE: MONTEITH REAL ESTATE TRENDS IN PROFILE: AYIZE GLENN GRAY OCEANIC WEATHERS THE STORM MARKET SNAPSHOT

ON THE COVER

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PHOTO BY MEGAN DEITZ

Developer James Goodnight has been replacing bars with office space in some of his properties in downtown Wilmington, including at 1 S. Front St. (above).

Goodnight's work, along with that of others, has been getting some downtown buildings in better shape while others languish or are waiting for their facelifts.

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B r a d l e y C r e e k S tat i o n COMING SOON TO OLEANDER DRIVE 80,000SF Class A Retail/Office Condominiums For Sale or Lease

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: STEVE HA LL, Partner with Maus Warwick Matthews & Co. 910.279.3227 | stevehall@mwmrealestate.com

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STEVE ANDERSON Developer, SAMM Properties M A G A Z I N E 910.616.0483 | sa@ec.rr.com

PA R K E R A N D E R S O N Developer, SAMM Properties 910.200.6614 | parker@sammproperties.comm

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

OFFICE

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DREAMS

COME TRUE

t’s no exaggeration to say that office space, especially in the class A variety, is in high demand in certain portions of the Wilmington area.

Anyone can see that’s true in the Mayfaire-Landfall submarket, where little if any class A space was available as of press time.

“It’s just non-existent right now, to purchase or even to lease,” said Keith Austin, broker with Wilmington-based Maus, Warwick, Matthews & Co. Austin recently helped close the nearly $12 million sale of 68,000 square feet of office space at 1001 Military Cutoff Road to some investors based in Greensboro.

In another example, an eight-year commercial real estate journey came to a close in February in nearby Mayfaire’s office park.

The Offices at Mayfaire VI sold to Raleigh investors, and the deed shows that the buyer, Ticon Properties, paid $11.7 million to previous owner The Offices at Mayfaire VI, an entity of Wilmington-based development firm SAMM Properties.

The 40,500-square-foot office building is leased in its entirety by banking software company nCino.

Offices at Mayfaire developer Steve Anderson of SAMM Properties led the creation of 222,500 square feet of office space within the Mayfaire office park from 2011 to 2019.

It will be strange to no longer see Anderson’s Offices at Mayfaire sign on Military Cutoff Road in front of Mayfaire Community Center after so much time. But Anderson and his office development team, including son Parker Anderson of SAMM Properties and listing agent Steve Hall, partner with Maus, Warwick, Matthews & Co., are working on an Oleander Drive office and retail project called Bradley Creek Station, expected to be complete by next year.

The 80,112-square-foot building will consist of class A retail space on the first floor and class A office space on the second and third floors with the option to lease or purchase, Hall said recently.

Another illustration of the demand for office space is another Hall listing, this one at Mayfaire Town

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Center, on a small patch of undeveloped land on Town Center Drive that was once planned to become more retail space.

Hall has been working with Mayfaire Town Center owner CBL Properties to market the spot as suitable for a 9,500-square-foot, single-story office building.

The change from retail to office plans resulted from the “lack of inventory for office space in the Mayfaire market,” Hall said.

Its location gives a business owner “the opportunity to offer his employees a live-work environment with the access of walking to restaurants, exercise facilities” and more, Hall said.

Perhaps farther out on the horizon is additional office space on Military Cutoff and Eastwood roads at planned developments CenterPoint and The Avenue and in the next phase of Autumn Hall.

As the boss Michael on the NBC hit TV show The Office once said, “An office is a place where dreams come true.” Or at the very least, it can be where jobs are created.

CECE NUNN , ASSISTANT EDITOR/ REAL ESTATE REPORTER cnunn@wilmingtonbiz.com

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CONTRIBUTORS

M A G A Z I N E

2 0 1 9 R E A L E S TAT E I S S U E – $ 4 . 9 5

C E C E N U N N CECE NUNN has been writing and editing for more than 20 years, currently working as the assistant editor and real estate reporter for the Greater Wilmington Business Journal. She lives in Wilmington with her husband and two daughters. Nunn checks in on the shape of downtown Wilmington’s historical buildings on PAGE 16. She also talks with developer Chuck Schoninger (PAGE 20) and Monteith Construction officials (PAGE 24) about their work.

Publisher Rob Kaiser

rkaiser@wilmingtonbiz.com

President

Robert Preville rpreville@wilmingtonbiz.com

A s s o c i at e P u b l i s h e r Judy Budd

jbudd@wilmingtonbiz.com

Editor

Vicky Janowski vjanowski@wilmingtonbiz.com

A s s i s ta n t E d i t o r Cece Nunn

cnunn@wilmingtonbiz.com

JESSICA MAURER JESSICA MAURER is a chef and writer with degrees from Hartwick College and The Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. Her column, Restaurant Roundup, appears each week in the Greater Wilmington Business Journal and she is a regular contributor to WILMA and Wilmington Magazine. She talks with Oceanic restaurant’s owners about their efforts to reopen after Hurricane Florence (PAGE 30).

Reporters

Christina Haley O'Neal chaley@wilmingtonbiz.com

Johanna Cano jcano@wilmingtonbiz.com

VP of Sales/Business Development Melissa Pressley

mpressley@wilmingtonbiz.com

Senior Account Executive Craig Snow

csnow@wilmingtonbiz.com

Account Executive Polly Holly

pholly@wilmingtonbiz.com

T E R E S A MCLAMB TERESA MCLAMB, a native of Southeastern North Carolina, is an avid traveler, art collector and cat lover. She is an awardwinning freelance writer and PR consultant who holds a BA in journalism from UNC and an MA in English from UNCW. McLamb profiles commercial agent Ayize Glenn Gray on PAGE 28.

Business Manager Nancy Proper

nproper@wilmingtonbiz.com

Events Director Maggi Apel

mapel@wilmingtonbiz.com

E v e n t s / D i g i ta l A s s i s ta n t Elizabeth Stelzenmuller

events@wilmingtonbiz.com

D e s i g n & M e d i a C o o r d i nat o r Molly Jacques

production@wilmingtonbiz.com

M E G A N D E I T Z MEGAN DEITZ turned her love of photography into a full-time career in 2003 when she began traveling up and down the East Coast as a sports photographer. Today, she specializes in portrait and commercial photography but can be found fueling her true passion for landscape and wildlife photography through her travels around the world. In this issue, Deitz photographed James Goodnight for the cover and “Downtown Fix” (PAGE 16). She also shot the Oceanic restaurant for “After the Storm” (PAGE 30). megandeitz.com

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Content Marketing Editor Hilary Snow

hsnow@wilmingtonbiz.com

Contributing Designer Suzi Drake

art@wilmingtonbiz.com

C o n t r i b u t i n g P h o t o g r ap h e r s River Bondurant, Megan Deitz, T.J. Drechsel, Michael Cline Spencer

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Your Local to Global COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE RESOURCE

SUN COAST PARTNERS

BROKERAGE I CONSULTING I PROPERTY MANAGEMENT Coldwell Banker Commercial Sun Coast Partners cbcsuncoast.com w i l m i n g t o n b i z m a g a z i n e . c o m

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1430 Commonwealth Drive I Suite 102 I Wilmington, NC 28403 I 910.350.1200 e a l

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BizBites SOUND OFF |

BEHIND THE NUMBERS

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THE DIGEST

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photo by RIVER BONDURANT

Smith + Gsell Design Studio opened in March to serve as a working space where designers can meet with architects, builders, artisans and clients to collaborate on projects. The studio, at 216 Victory Gardens Drive, mirrors the clean, modern coastal composition Smith + Gsell specializes in.

“It’s designed to be a hub for everybody to pull together,” said Renee Smith, who co-founded the interior design firm with Susan Gsell in 2011.

“There is a vocabulary of modern architecture occurring in that area,” Gsell said about their new neighboring strip of Oleander Drive, “so there are a number of buildings that complement each other architecturally.”

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HELP WANTED TO ADD JOBS

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OUTHEASTERN NORTH CAROLINA HAS A JOBS CHALLENGE. TOO MANY PEOPLE HAVE JOBS THAT UNDERUTILIZE THEIR SKILLS, TOO MANY GO AWAY TO COLLEGE AND DON’T RETURN AS THEY CAN’T FIND WORK HERE AND LARGE NUMBERS WHO WILL SEEK EMPLOYMENT ARE MOVING HERE. The region should address this need with a jobs strategy built on our strengths.

Successful communities have expanded their economic development efforts with robust small business, entrepreneurial, tourism and marketing strategies. An adaption of these models can build on this region’s strengths.

These strategies will work best if done regionally. No one area has the resources nor assets to do it all, and no one area is a unique economy separate from the others. We need a unified effort by Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender.

Starting a business is popular here. More startups are coming from business incubators at the university and at private venues. And a host of residents are creating traditional new businesses such as retail stores, restaurants, professional services, franchises and more.

These startups offer major economic potential. It’s worth noting that

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P A U L LAWLER two of our most prominent entrepreneurial companies were both begun by local residents who chose to create here. Southeastern North Carolina’s goal should be to see more of the new businesses succeeding.

Tools to help the business startup prosper already exist. Focused college training, special state and local government programs, economic development organizations, SBTDC, SCORE and other assistance are available.

Brunswick Community College even has a makerspace. But do the businesses that could use the assistance get it?

Many communities have created a common web portal to make the connection. They’re offered at local governments, chambers, EDOs and others and structured as a business owner would seek the service. They connect the business startup with the provider. Adding a business coach to maintain the site and to offer additional assistance would provide a strategy to improve the success rate of new businesses.

Tourism is another major component of the local economy and one that’s heavily focused on the summer months with a heavy drop off in “shoulder months.” Thriving on a few months and struggling in many months is a bad business model for companies in that arena and a terrible model for the people who work in that field.

M A G A Z I N E

A former airport executive recommended that the tourism agencies and airport team up to create a unified message. He believed that a unified communication strategy would extend the reach of whatever story the area chooses and be more effective than multiple small, mixed efforts. He’s right. Good regional cooperation includes a unified marketing strategy.

Southeastern North Carolina’s great strength – its competitive edge – is its lifestyle. It’s an asset that can attract visitors who will support our history, arts, food and other lifestyle features. It’s an asset that can attract the skilled workforce certain employers require. It’s an asset that can attract people who will support those lifestyle assets we enjoy. And it’s an asset that can strengthen our tourism sector. The regional marketing message should build on lifestyle.

The lifestyle message impact can be extended by inviting lifestyle groups’ participation. History groups could create a history trail. Film groups could create a film locations tour. A music organization could perform prior to the July Fourth fireworks. Our growing food scene can connect with more area farmers. Arts groups could come together and hold a blockbuster art show.

And so too our festivals, sports, theater, river activities and so on should all be invited to participate.

That would grow their business and provide content for the joint messaging strategy.

The jobs strategy means leveraging more from our local assets. The university and the hospital are doing interesting things with job creation potential. They’re creating new pro-

BizBites grams, new studies and attracting new high-skill people.

Data analysis, ocean engineering, logistics and more all offer potential for Southeastern North Carolina. We should find ways to leverage those activities to strengthen the economy.

You might ask, what exactly would adoption of this strategy leave us with?

Combining all area marketing efforts provides a greater ability to tell our story and to reach audiences we don’t now reach.

Focusing that message on our lifestyle strengthens the features of Southeastern North Carolina that we all treasure.

Telling the lifestyle message reaches tourists with more income to share, some business investors and specialized skill employees that local business needs.

Assisting business startups in finding available assistance increases their likelihood of success.

And leveraging interesting activities at the colleges, hospital and elsewhere leads to more startups with potential.

It means more, better jobs.

Paul Lawler serves on the Wilmington City Council and was elected to office in 2015.

2019

SPARK

S PA R K IDEAS

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Greater Wilmington Business Journal and WilmingtonBiz Magazine publish a regular series of op-eds about ideas for sparking economic growth in the region. If you have a column topic to be considered, email editor@wilmingtonbiz.com.

CROWDSOURCING REACTIONS, OPINIONS AND QUOTABLES FROM OUR ONLINE SOUNDING BOARDS

O N FA C E B O O K . C O M / W I L M I N GT O N B I Z

WHAT DESTINATION SHOULD BE NEXT FOR ILM ?

“DEFINITELY FLORIDA-FLL (Fort Lauderdale) or MIA (Miami)! Easier access to cruise ports, international flights and vacation spots.”– MELISSA MEOLA “BOSTON, MA – international flights, regional transportation, New England in the summer and fall is beautiful.”

– CHERICE SCHARF

EXISTING ILM DESTINATIONS

MOST VOTES

LEAST VOTES

“CLEVELAND, OHIO because it is where my grandbabies live and it’s also an international airport.” – LYNNE STAMM

We asked readers for their flight picks, and the response came in by the hundreds. Direct flights to cities in Florida were the most-popular pick, by far, with more than 60 votes.

“JUST ADD SOUTHWEST AIRLINES and traffic at ILM will jump!” – GARY SMITH

T W I T T E R P O L L : @ W I L M I N GT O N B I Z

SELF-STORAGE UNITS CONTINUE TO BE DEVELOPED IN THE AREA. DO YOU USE ONE FOR YOUR EXTRA STUFF? 78% NO 22% YES W I L M I N GT O N B I Z . C O M

READER REACTIONS

LOCAL LEADERS, LAWYERS REACT TO GENX AGREEMENT “GOVERNOR ROY COOPER HAS THE POLITICAL POWER to ensure that any settlement between the State of North Carolina and DuPont and Chemours corporations protects the health and quality of life for all citizens of North Carolina. He also has the moral duty to do so. Our state government exists to protect the health and quality of life for all our residents. The government is not in place to advance the fortunes of the relatively few who are very well off at the expense of the rest of our population. As we all learned from kindergarten and grade school, if you make a mess, you are responsible for cleaning it up.” – BILL NORTH BAGEL SHOP COMING SOON TO THE POINTE AT BARCLAY “THAT’S GREAT, HOWEVER, the Pointe needs something besides food places and the movie theater. I was really excited to see this place go up, but it lacks a lot of variety of things for people to do. Hoping it gets better. All for it!” – JOEY GORE SIGN UP FOR DAILY NEWS UPDATES AND SUBSCRIBE TO THE GREATER WILMINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL AT WILMINGTONBIZ.COM

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MAKING RETAIL MULTITASK

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F YOU GO OUT WITH COWORKERS ON A FRIDAY AFTERNOON OR MAYBE STAY FOR A HAPPY HOUR AT THE OFFICE, IS THAT CONSIDERED WORK TIME OR LEISURE? If you meet colleagues for dinner and spend 30 minutes discussing work projects and 30 minutes arguing about college football, is that work?

The lines between work and play are blurring just as the tenets of development and regulations are changing. The clearly defined lines between work and play are breaking down in calendar and hourly space; the physical space between work and living may also break down over the next generation.

Nearly 20 years ago, two Harvard professors summed up society’s transition from goods consuming to experience consuming with the story of birthday cakes: Cakes from scratch in the agrarian economy became cakes from a box in the goods-based economy and eventually experiential parties at Chuck E. Cheese’s.

Today, even Chuck E. Cheese’s may not make the cut for many families who would rather their whole parties fly through the air and hoops rather than just the ball in an arcade game. To compete in today’s economy, firms – including commercial real estate developers and owners – must stage experiences for their customers.

As society’s means have increased and tastes evolved, real estate is evolving as well, hence the rise of the “mixed-use” development, the “lifestyle centers” such as Mayfaire, The

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A D A M J O N E S Pointe at Barclay and the proposed renovations of Independence Mall, along with the planned CenterPoint and The Avenue developments.

Shifting tastes have implications for both businesses and the physical space they inhabit.

Look at the craft beer industry.

Beer is becoming less a business of fermented grains and more a business of storytelling and experiences. The buildings breweries are located in play an important role in creating the experience.

Combining increasing incomes with a desire for experiences rather than stuff and an explosion of technology sets the stage for a major upheaval in commercial real estate.

While the death of brick-andmortar retail is often oversold, there is no doubt that e-commerce is pressuring retailers to leverage the technology rather than simply compete with it.

For example, many local grocery stores have retrofitted drive-thru lanes, and others are moving into online ordering of meals, etc. The most successful firms and property companies will merge the physical space with virtual space and an evolving tenant mix to create complete and multifaceted experiences.

So what does the future look like for commercial real estate?

It’s likely to be one of continued evolution and retooling existing designs to make older facilities compatible with today’s demand for experiM A G A Z I N E

ences. Malls around the country are changing their tenant mix in search of foot traffic and recruiting fitness centers and grocery stores.

But the advancement of the economy from goods to services and now experiences is most evident in experiential tenants such as laser tag, trampoline parks, virtual golf and indoor amusement parks taking over space from “junior anchors” such as electronics retailers.

Finally, we should note that this retooling of space goes beyond just property owners as the community and local governments also adapt, including the expansion of multiuse trails, highlighting of green spaces and creating so-called “third” spaces. Look no further than that county’s complete communities initiative of moving away from single-use zoning patterns of the past to more cohesive approaches.

Shifting demographics will also reinforce the movement from goods to experiences as new residents, often empty nesters, search for places to interact with others and build community.

A cup of coffee, a craft beer, a dog park visit or a trip to the gym provides a social outlet in a more genuine and sustainable manner.

In the middle of this transition, it might be worth asking: Do you really miss spending hours wandering the grocery store looking for red food coloring or ingredients for a birthday cake?

I’d much rather spend my time playing laser tag with the kids or hitting a golf ball while sharing a meal with friends.

Adam Jones is a regional economist with UNCW’s Swain Center and an associate professor of economics in UNCW’s Cameron School of Business.

NUMBERS $ 60 MILLION

TOTAL COST OF WILMINGTON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’S TERMINAL EXPANSION PROJECT

ILM EXPANSION TAKES OFF

BY CHRISTINA HALEY O’NEAL

THE FIRST PART OF THE WILMINGTON International Airport’s $60 million terminal expansion project is expected to wrap up this month, said Granseur Dick, the airport’s planning and development director. The $1.8 million contract was to move ILM’s TSA baggage screening devices to prepare for work in the next phase of construction.

Work under the two contracts – both awarded to Monteith Construction Corp. – will be paid for through $11.9 million in state funds approved by the General Assembly in 2017. A portion of those funds was also used to purchase and install a new passenger boarding bridge last spring.

The remainder of the project is projected to cost $42 million and includes expanding TSA checkpoints, baggage claim areas and gate areas as well as building a new concourse. The work is anticipated to go out for bid this fall, with construction slated to begin in early 2020.

The Federal Aviation Administration has programmed $20 million in funds for this work, Dick said, adding that ILM will also pursue state funds or could dip into ILM’s reserves, if needed, to fund the remainder of the project and keep it moving forward.

The total figure for the entire project also includes about $6.5 million for engineering, architectural and other expenses, he said.

When the project is complete, the size of the airport will increase from 93,000 square feet to about 179,000 square feet, said Dick, adding that the number will continue to fluctuate as designs are finalized.

The dramatic increase in size is needed at the airport, which could hit a million-passenger milestone of inbound and outbound travelers this year. w i l m i n g t o n b i z m a g a z i n e . c o m

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$20

# OF COMMERCIAL PERMITS

$18.32

$15.99

$15 $10

Q4

Q1

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2018 RE TAIL S PACE R E N T

COST PER SQUARE FOOT

$13

PENDER

The project’s second phase is scheduled to start in April. Work on that $9.2 million contract will be carried out until 2020. This part will expand the existing terminal, provide new airline ticket offices and grow the ticket lobby, as well as add a new outbound baggage area for airline crew.

RENOVATION

*

MILLION

COST OF HURRICANE FLORENCE

DEBRIS COLLECTION

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The three-part expansion and renovation project, which got underway in October, is slated to make upgrades and add capacity to the previous terminal built in 1989. It also includes new gates and equipment modernization, Dick said. Construction is expected to last until the summer of 2022.

NEW CONSTRUCTION

WILMINGTON

BEHIND THE

NEW HANOVER

BizBites

MANUFACTURING ESTABLISHMENTS AS OF Q2 2018 Sources: New Hanover County, CoStar, Pender County, N.C. Commerce

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DIGEST THE

A R O U N DU P O F R E C E N T CO MME R C IA L R E A L E STAT E NE WS

UNCW, DEVELOPER PARTNER ON PROJECT rendering c/o AUTUMN HALL

AUTUMN HALL UNVEILS EXPANSION

The next phase of Autumn Hall is expected to include highend retail, restaurants, offices and apartments, and construction could begin as early as summer 2019, according to project developers.

Construction of the 235-acre development Autumn Hall, which has long been planned as a mixeduse project, began in 2007.

“We’ve been very patient and very deliberate about trying to proceed in a manner that makes sense,” said Mike Brown of Autumn Hall and Wilmingtonbased commercial real estate firm Cape Fear Commercial. “We want everything we do to be high-end and raise the bar on quality here for a real high-end mixed-use experience.”

Preliminary plans for Autumn Hall’s latest phase show a 13-acre mixed-use phase between Carolina Bay Drive and Autumn Hall Drive, fronting on Eastwood Road. The

project includes seven buildings with 28,000 square feet of retail/restaurant space, 90,000 square feet of offices, and 180,000 square feet of residential space.

Brown said the plans include 140 apartments, many above potential retail and restaurants with opportunities for outdoor dining.

The designs also show an event lawn connecting to the Gary Shell CrossCity Trail.

Autumn Hall already has about 200 lots and homes, 286 apartments and 65,000 square feet of existing office and retail space that is home to Drift Coffee, Harrington Homes, Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage Realty, Glen Meade Center for Women’s Health and the Nunnelee Pediatric Clinic. It is also home to Carolina Bay, a continuing care retirement community owned and operated by Liberty Healthcare.

– CECE NUNN

TO STAY IN THE LOOP ON THE LATEST REAL ESTATE HAPPENINGS, CHECK OUT THE WEEKLY REAL ESTATE UPDATE EMAIL. SIGN UP AT WILMINGTONBIZ.COM.

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M A G A Z I N E

Construction started this year on a new student housing complex at UNCW. Balfour Beatty Campus Solutions, a developer in the college and university market, closed on public-private partnership financing to develop an oncampus housing and dining community at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

The partnership involved the issuance of $147.6 million in bonds, UNCW officials said.

The two-phase project will house more than 1,800 students.

The unnammed project will involve the construction of four buildings. Two buildings are scheduled for completion in the fall of 2020 and the remaining two the year after, officials said.

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years to fully develop THE OFFICES AT MAYFAIRE buildings

The final building sold for

$ 1 1 . 7 MILLION earlier this year

TOTAL SQUARE FOOTAGE OF THE SIX BUILDINGS

222,500

BizBites

C-SUITE C O N V O

LED BY DESIGN

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ROM CHARLES BONEY JR.’S DOWNTOWN OFFICE AT LS3P, HE HAS A CLEAR VIEW OF THE FORMER COOPERATIVE BANK HEADQUARTERS THAT HIS FATHER, CHARLIE, DESIGNED. They would later get to work together on the building (now First Bank) on an addition.

For a local family that includes three generations of architects and dozens of landmark buildings in their collective portfolios, it’s easy to find overlapping projects in the area.

Leslie Boney opened an architectural office in 1913 that eventually became Boney Architects, drawing his three sons and some of their children into the industry along the way. In 2005, the firm merged with LS3P, growing to 35 employees in the Wilmington office and 330 across the firm’s multiple locations.

Chris Boney, Charles’ brother, was recently named chief relationships officer to focus on firm-wide business development, and their cousin Paul Boney serves as senior vice president.

Below is an excerpt from a recent conversation with Charles Boney Jr., vice president and principal, on the continued impact architecture has on the community. To read more, go to wilmingtonbizmagazine.com.

FROM AN ARCHITECTURAL STANDPOINT, WHAT DID THE WILSON CENTER REPRESENT FOR OUR MARKET?

Right now I’m working on a proposal for a master plan for Fayetteville Technical Community College – we do a lot of community college planning …

I’m working on helping Pender County with a restoration plan for their courthouse, and that’s a really important thing to that community because that courthouse anchors so much of Burgaw. It’s been out of use since Hurricane Florence. I’m anxious to help them get that thing back in shape. I like to fix things, and that’s one of those things that I can fix.”

CHARLES BONEY JR. VICE PRESIDENT LS3P Associates Ltd.

“Much higher-level design. It proved that we could put a very, very high-style modern building in historic downtown Wilmington and have it blend in and be accepted and be a real focal point for that north side of town. …We did the Wilson Center.

We did (CFCC) Union Station. We did the convention center – those three, this sort of this triumvirate thing of fairly large buildings, large footprints, huge public investment in downtown. But they also draw people.

So the convention center is bringing tourists into downtown. It’s bringing people from outside, from Raleigh and Greensboro, and they’re all coming here, and they bringing their dollars. They’re laying their dollars on the tables of restaurants, shops, and I think they really are a tool of commerce as much as anything.”

YOU'VE BEEN WITH THE FIRM FOR THIS LONG AND THROUGH THE MERGER AND GROWTH PERIOD, SO WALK ME THROUGH: WHAT'S A TYPICAL DAY LIKE FOR YOU NOW?

“That’s the thing I enjoy about my job, is there are no typical days. …

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SINCE YOU ALL WORK ON A LOT OF COMMERCIAL AND MIXED-USE PROJECTS, WHAT ROLE DOES THAT HAVE IN HOW WILMINGTON IS GOING TO CONTINUE TO DEVELOP?

“I hope, by elevating the importance of design, we set the stage for improvement in surrounding properties so everyone benefits. There was a great architect Eliel Saarinen who said, ‘Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.’

So if you take that to the logical conclusion, when we design a building we think about the block that it sits in. We think about the block that’s adjacent to that and what are the influences that project can have on the other side …

We have an obligation as architects to make good buildings – preferably great buildings – but those buildings should also contribute to and engage and improve the fabric of the city surrounding them.

No building stands alone.”

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DOWN TO W N FIX

As Wilmington’s downtown thrives in some ways, its buildings are still vulnerable

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he building at 226 N. Front St. had been vacant so long, a tree had grown up inside it. That was before previous owner, Bob DeYoung, bought it and before Chapel Hill-based firm East West Partners bought the three-story historical structure in downtown Wilmington from DeYoung for $975,000 in June last year.

East West, which is currently in a public-private partnership with the city of Wilmington to create a 13-story, mixed-use building on a separate site downtown, plans to turn what’s known as the Gaylord building (shown on the opposite page, it housed Gaylord’s Department Store in 1903) into class A office space.

Even before Hurricane Florence struck the Wilmington area in September and poured rain on damaged buildings for three days, not all of downtown’s aging and historical structures were in the best shape. w i l m i n g t o n b i z m a g a z i n e . c o m

BY CECE NUNN |

PHOTOS BY MEGAN DEITZ

“It’s the old adage: Pay me now or pay me later,” Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo said. “If you don’t put the money and maintenance into an old building, it’s going to suffer damage.”

T H RE E NAILS H E LD U P T H E CORN ER

While some landmarks in downtown Wilmington like the Gaylord building are on their way to rehabilitation and others languish, the latest transformation at 1 and 9 S. Front St. is nearly complete except for some work needed on the second floor.

But when Raleigh-based developer James Goodnight bought them in 2015 and 2016, there were a lot of issues to address. One example was the situation with a bathroom on the second floor inside 1 S. Front St., a space previously occupied by a bar.

“There were like three nails holding up the whole back corner,” said Goodnight, who completely refurbished the space before leasing it and adjoining space in 9 S. Front to the growing North American division of German kitchen accessory company Kesseböhmer.

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Goodnight and his development team finished rehabilitating the building at 21 S. Front St., which is the headquarters for Untappd, in 2017.

And now Untappd, a technology firm that develops social- and data-driven consumer and business software products related to beer, has grown to more than 100 employees.

FI LLI N G A N E E D

Historical structures can attract tech companies like Untappd and other employers to a vibrant downtown, but restoring old buildings takes a lot of time, money and hard work, developers say.

“The Cotton Exchange was one of the first major projects. They gutted the buildings and refurbished them to be

able to make it a viable corner,” Saffo said of the collection of shops on North Front Street. “That to me was really the first big, big revitalization effort in the downtown area, and from there it took off.”

More recently, Monteith Construction Corp. last year opened its new main office at 208 Princess St. in the Knights of Pythias building that dates back to 1914, spending more than $1 million to refurbish the building.

For Monteith officials, it was not love at first sight when they began looking downtown for a new location that could accommodate a firm that had outgrown its existing downtown building, said president Bryan Thomas.

“We weren’t sure if we wanted to go through a full renovation, but as we

continued to look around here and see what was available, we kept coming back to this building,” Thomas said.

“And every time we’d come back, we’d see a little more potential.”

BOT TOM LINE

Monteith’s office building fared well during Hurricane Florence, but dozens of others were affected in minor or major ways, said Ed Wolverton, president and CEO of Wilmington Downtown Inc. “Most of our older buildings have been through hurricanes before.

Generally, they are strong and able to withstand the damage,” Wolverton said.

“A major concern is that everyone needs to keep up with building maintenance, especially roofs and windows. Have roof

HISTORY HEALER

A Raleigh native finds stories to revive in Wilmington’s old buildings On a weekday near the end of January, James Goodnight planned to travel to Willard, a small unincorporated community in Pender County, after visiting some of his properties in downtown Wilmington.

The reason for the side trip on his way home to Raleigh: Some state officials had asked him if he might be interested in saving an old Wilmington & Weldon Railroad train depot by moving it from Willard to Raleigh, and Goodnight was seriously considering it, he said, as he showed pictures of the historic structure that were stored on his phone.

It’s not something he’s done before, but the 37-yearold Raleigh native has spent the past several years

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inspections done periodically. Look for any sign of water intrusion in and around windows. Unchecked, these can lead to major damage down the road – with or without a hurricane.”

But a hurricane can shed light on neglect.

“It’s like your car. If you don’t keep the oil changed, don’t be surprised if the engine fails,” said Dawn Snotherly, historic preservation planner for the city of Wilmington. “There is a certain amount of deferred maintenance that comes to the forefront when you have a storm event as catastrophic as Florence was.”

NEW PR OJ E CT S

As part of a 1031 exchange late last year, Goodnight purchased 522 S. rehabilitating historic structures in the Port City, including four on Front Street and two on Princess Street.

Although born in the state’s capital city, James has always had ties to Wilmington. His father, SAS CEO and co-founder Jim Goodnight, graduated from New Hanover High School before heading to N.C. State University, where in 1976 he and colleagues planted the seeds of the software firm he still leads. Since then, SAS has grown to employ nearly 14,000 people worldwide and has a revenue of more than $3 billion.

In addition to James, Jim Goodnight and his wife, Ann, have two older daughters. In the 1990s, James Goodnight’s sister Leah founded but later sold Beanie + Cecil, a boutique

Third St., a long-vacant brick building at the corner of South Third and Castle streets. A 1031 exchange is part of the Internal Revenue Code allowing an owner to sell a property and reinvest the proceeds in new income-producing property while deferring capital gains taxes.

The price for the Third Street property was $250,000.

Also through a limited liability company Alberta Properties, Goodnight in November bought 230 Princess St., a nearly 1,000-square-foot space (not counting the basement) next to two other retail properties he owns, for $200,000.

“I think Princess Street as a whole is turning into such a great little center of activity for downtown,” Goodnight said.

clothing store in Wilmington.

But although James worked in finance at SAS for a time, he later found a career in saving historical buildings, first in Raleigh and then in Wilmington.

James attended Ravenscroft School in Raleigh before graduating with degrees in history and psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was working at SAS a few years after college when he noticed something about his hometown that would be key to his future work.

“I was living there and seeing how quickly things were changing,” he said. “It seemed like a pretty great frontier of real estate.”

His historic rehab career began in Raleigh and includes a former bank building that is home to

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Both structures were built in the 1940s.

GDN nail bar recently opened at 222 Princess St., and leasing signs have gone up in 226 Princess St. “They’re such neat buildings.

They’re kind of tiny, and each one is unique,” Goodnight said of his Princess Street properties. “Everyone (on his historic renovation team) loves working on those.”

All the Princess Street spaces were vacant and serving no purpose at the time Goodnight bought them.

“The good news is, with the amount of activity and the amount of excitement, the downtown buildings can become valuable,” Saffo said. “And so people are coming in here and buying them and restoring them to long-term health.”

the award-winning restaurant Death & Taxes and Anchorlight, an incubator art studio created using an old warehouse.

This year, a Wilmington satellite of Anchorlight opened with an art show in the bottom floor of 1 S. Front St., one of James’ Wilmington properties.

In Wilmington, his historic redevelopment efforts started with the headquarters of Untappd at 21 S. Front St., a project announced in 2014. Now they include 1 and 9 S. Front St., for which he restored the connection between the two buildings; 10 S. Front St.;222, 226 and 230 Princess St.; and a building at the corner of Third and Castle streets.

Along the way, both in Wilmington and Raleigh, James has used the state’s historic tax credit program to make

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his projects work. With his developments, he aims to activate downtown streets that might have waned in the past.

For example, the former owner of 230 Princess St. showed James some photos from 1975, “when he had the buildings appraised, and they’re looking down Princess Street, and it was just so desolate,” James said.

He sees rejuvenation along the corridor these days, just as he saw potential, and interesting stories, in downtown's historic structures before he started his projects in Wilmington.

“I took a few history classes (in college) and actually really enjoyed writing the papers. It’s all about storytelling and research and all that,” James said. “It’s kind of the same thing with these old buildings.”

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DEVELOPING D I F F E R E N T LY Chuck Schoninger's path to creating major projects in Wilmington hasn't been a smooth one

BY CECE NUNN P H O T O S B Y T. J . D R E C H S E L

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f he had it all to do over again, he probably wouldn’t.

“I’d be in Miami Beach, hanging out. The amount of money I’ve spent here, I could’ve lived a very good life,” said developer Charles “Chuck” Schoninger, sitting in a restaurant booth in February at the Marina Grill.

M A G A Z I N E

He was only half joking.

Schoninger was talking about the creation of the restaurant at Port City Marina and the marina itself, which are part of an area along the Cape Fear River in downtown Wilmington that Schoninger estimates will eventually contain about $750 million worth of development, including the $50 million his company and investors have spent there.

Despite his answer “no” to the question, “Would you do it all over again?” Schoninger, CEO of real estate development firm USA InvestCo, said adding a marina, two restaurant buildings and Pier 33 Entertainment,

a concert venue, to the city’s northern riverfront, along with building a cold storage facility at the Port of Wilmington, has had its moments.

“It’s rewarding in the long term,” he said. “I’m proud of what we’ve done here.”

But the northern riverfront project in particular has also had its challenges, with legal disputes between Schoninger and the construction company that built the restaurants, and between Schoninger and the companies he was working with to operate the restaurants, along with delays and even more construction issues than anticipated at the outset.

He said he had also hoped to have apartments on land facing the marina under construction at the same time, but while the marina was finished in 2015, Schoninger’s group sold the apartment land to a different developer in 2014. That developer, DeWitt Carolinas, broke ground on the Pier 33 apartments four years later.

Schoninger moved to Wilmington from Colorado more than 10 years ago, acquiring the bulk of the 35 acres he and investors eventually owned along the northern riverfront in 2007.

These days, he only has a few vacant acres left. It’s unclear when a hotel that was part of his plans might be developed, and one of the two restaurants at the marina is serving as an event venue instead of an eatery.

said he and his partners persevered, working on other plans for the former industrial properties and selling the stadium site to the city for the park for just under $4 million.

Much of USA InvestCo.’s northern riverfront projects, as well as its Port of Wilmington Cold Storage facility, were funded through the federal EB-5 program. At the time, for a minimum of $500,000 worth of an investment and the creation of the equivalent of at least 10 direct, indirect or induced jobs, individual investors in the area's projects could be granted green cards.

But the effects of the Great Recession and construction delays hampered the marina project, for which construction started in 2012.

“We’re probably a year to a yearand-a-half behind from our schedule,” Schoninger said in July 2015. “There’s a bunch of things that kind of lead up to that. Construction here was a lot harder than we ever anticipated, so it took a lot more money.”

Crews had to pull up what Schoninger called in 2015 “piles and piles of junk” from the river to be able to create the marina.

“We spent a week on two or three rocks,” he said.

Without the PPD headquarters building, which opened in 2007, and the restaurants and the marina in front of PPD’s building, the area might still be home to what was considered

a blight, a former industrial property, Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo said.

“I always say about developers: They’re professional gamblers,” Saffo said. “You’re basically borrowing money, betting on a concept that you think is going to fly, tying it into the overall health of the economy, and hopefully you made the right call because if it goes wrong, you’re going to lose everything.

“When nobody could get money to do the project that [Schoninger] did, he went out and found the money.

He raised the capital in the middle of a tough recession and made the investment and voila, you have this beautiful marina” and the restaurant buildings.

Saffo said Schoninger is not a “quintessential developer” who analyzes every detail of a project before moving forward.

“He’s more going from the gut,” the mayor said. “But so far, he’s done a phenomenal job for the riverfront, and all the stuff that’s happening down there, a lot of it is due to him.”

RE STAU RANT WO ES

When they were first announced seven years ago, the two restaurants at the marina were going to be BlackFinn Ameripub and Vida Mexican Kitchen y Cantina.

Fast-forward to 2019, and Schoninger and the companies that FILE PHOTO

‘ GOIN G F RO M T H E G U T ’

The marina, the restaurants and Pier 33 Entertainment all came about after Schoninger and others in Wilmington tried to get the city to go in on a baseball stadium that would be built on land at the foot of Harnett Street on the northern riverfront.

The stadium would have overlooked the Cape Fear River on 6.6 acres that will now be home to the city’s North Waterfront Park.

In 2012, 70 percent of voters in a public referendum sided against building the baseball stadium, killing a proposal to build the facility and bring a minor league team to town.

It was a letdown, but Schoninger w i l m i n g t o n b i z m a g a z i n e . c o m

Chuck Schoninger, CEO of real estate development firm USA InvestCo, is shown about six years ago near the site of what would one day become Port City Marina.

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Dwight Yoakam at Pier 33 Entertainment's venue in October 2017

were going to operate the restaurants are accusing each other of various failures and funding discrepancies.

Efforts to reach the plaintiffs in the case for this story, through their attorney and a Charlotte restaurant, were not successful before press time.

Schoninger did not want to

comment specifically on the dispute he’s in with the entities that were set to run the Wilmington locations of BlackFinn and Vida. The case was in N.C. Business Court as of press time.

Another case between Schoninger’s company Northern Riverfront Marina & Hotel and Clancy & Theys Construction Co. over the two-restaurant complex, which resulted in a nearly $860,000 judgment against NRMH in May, has been settled, Schoninger said, and NRMH remains the owner of the two buildings.

While Marina Grill is operating in the building that BlackFinn previously occupied, the building across the breezeway at the Port City Marina that was set to become Vida is being used as an event venue. It could change into a traditional eatery as the neighboring residential population increases over the next several years, Schoninger said.

Of the legal disputes in general, Schoninger said, “At the end of the

day, disputes are just a normal part in the course of running a development business.”

FLOAT ING NE W IDEA S

So what does the future hold for Schoninger and his development plans?

The answer is simple for one aspect: The EB-5 visa program has nearly run its course for Chinese investors, Schoninger said.

Others familiar with the program agree.

“EB-5 is just about dead, and the reason for that is the way that this visa is set up. As with other employmentbased visas, we only will allocate 7 percent of a visa classification to any one country and historically China has consumed 90 percent of the 10,000 or so EB-5 visas that are available,” said Steve D. Albert, managing director of East West Path, a U.S. immigration consulting firm.

He said that statistic has resulted in a 10- to 15-year waiting list for

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potential Chinese investors, too long to be of benefit to Chinese families, many of whom want the visas so their children can receive an education in the U.S., Albert said.

Schoninger has been pursuing other potential development near the Wilmington Convention Center for a hotel close to the marina, though it will not likely be a Hotel Indigo as originally planned, Schoninger said. His remaining land on the northern riverfront is under contract with developers he did not name.

With additional apartment projects already announced or underway along the northern riverfront, the residential density could build up to thousands of people, Schoninger said.

Meanwhile, his cold storage facility at the Port of Wilmington is 75 percent occupied thanks to poultry and produce clients, Schoninger said.

He said he’s also got a houseboat community in the works called The Strands, which would use Port City Marina slips and mean having residents at the marina on houseboats that another of Schoninger’s companies, Atlantic Houseboats, would build.

He said he’s received 400 inquiries about the houseboats, the results of just a small amount of advertising and word-of-mouth.

Schoninger said he’s not an apartment builder or office developer, instead specializing in projects that are outside the mainstream asset classes and that make more sense to finance with investment dollars.

“Nobody here would believe in it, would invest in it,” Saffo said of Schoninger’s northern riverfront projects. “It took him going to China and getting investors, and I salute him for that. That took a lot of courage. Whether you agree with him or not or whether you like the guy or not, I applaud him for it.”

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M A G A Z I N E

PROFILE

Now

in i t s second decade w o r k in g in N o r t h C a r o l in a , Monteith C o n s t ru c t i o n h a s e x pa n d e d with a new office and more p r o j e c t s in W i l min g t o n

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fter Hurricane Florence struck the Cape Fear region last year, a general contractor with a new main office in downtown Wilmington was ready to roll to work on more than two dozen damaged schools in New Hanover County.

Monteith Construction Corp., which traces its roots to Canada but came to North Carolina in 1998, had already worked on New Hanover County Schools projects in the past, including Gregory’s renovations and Hoggard’s gymnasium, and was in the midst of more projects for the school system, including the new College Park Elementary School building on Oriole Drive off South College Road.

“We have a relationship with them, and we told them we’re here for them,” Bryan Thomas, president of Monteith, said about working with the school system. “That’s kinda what it’s all about for us.”

“We were able to mobilize our crews,” said Thomas (opposite page), “and I think we helped with 28 school campuses” after the September storm caused water damage to hundreds of buildings in the Wilmington area, including schools. w i l m i n g t o n b i z m a g a z i n e . c o m

Not long before Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wrightsville Beach, Monteith, led by owner John Monteith, was showcasing its new headquarters in a historical building in downtown Wilmington.

In June, the Wilmington-based construction firm moved into the more than 7,000-square-foot building at 208 Princess St. The company, which also has offices in Raleigh, Myrtle Beach and Charleston, South Carolina, had outgrown its office of more than a decade at 32 N. Front St. “We polled everybody in the company, and everybody loved being downtown,” said Thomas, who worked his way up to the role of president after joining Monteith in 1999.

The previous downtown Wilmington office had about half the space, 3,400 square feet, and was bought by a financial firm in 2017.

Before Monteith’s more-than-$1 million purchase of the circa 1914 former Knights of Pythias building, it was being renovated for an events center and retail space, but eventually went back on the market.

The three-story building contains Monteith’s main office room, conference rooms, accounting department and its 3-D virtual construction laboratory.

The building also holds space for the company’s project managers and project coordinators as well as Monteith’s preconstruction, human resources and hard-bid estimating departments.

Thomas said one of the highlights of the renovation project is the rooftop deck, which has postcard-like views of Wilmington.

In addition to overhauling its own office space and being involved in school construction and renovation, Monteith has done work for New Hanover Regional Medical Center and Wilmington International Airport, among many other local projects.

After opening its first U.S. office in the Charlotte area in 1998, Monteith was awarded the bid to 2 0 1 9

renovate the main terminal of ILM in 2001(It’s working on the airport’s current expansion project as well).

With that project, the firm began to plant its roots here, a model it replicated in Raleigh and recently in Myrtle Beach and Charleston.

The company opened its first Wilmington office in 2005.

“We move as the opportunities present themselves. As a smaller company, we have the flexibility,” John Monteith said in a 2011 Greater Wilmington Business Journal story about the company’s growth.

Thomas said the company is licensed to work on projects in North Carolina and South Carolina, as well as Virginia, a state that’s anticipated to be a source of future growth.

But construction isn’t all the company focuses on. In addition to partnerships with local organizations, the company also sponsors Camp Schreiber, a weeklong summer camp in Canada for male youths from Wilmington.

The camp, according to Monteith’s website, highlights teamwork, character building, educational goals and leadership through activities. Along with the week at camp, Camp Schreiber also provides tutoring and extracurricular activities during the year.

The main goal, according to the website, “is to motivate and reward deserving teens who are pursuing their dream of higher education.”

In a message to employees, John Monteith has said, “One highlight of my life has been Camp Schreiber.”

Other than information on the firm’s website, the company rarely touts its connection to Camp Schreiber. But its community outreach shows itself physically in the new Wilmington office, where the company has incorporated pieces made by Kids Making It, a nonprofit program that trains at-risk children in the art of woodworking.

The company also designed its new office expecting to stay there for a while.

Thomas said, “We did build it with room to grow.”

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n the everchanging landscape of commercial real estate, some things stay the same, at least until the next supply/ demand cycle rolls around.

This is true for office space and apartments in Wilmington, even as transportation changes – some just proposed ones – and retail industry corrections are having an impact locally.

While an economic dip could be coming, the economy was faring well during the first quarter of 2019, as local brokers and businesspeople kept an eye on the following trends.

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“Other than a few build-to-suit and condo projects, very little new office product has been built over the last several years,” said Paul Loukas, broker and senior vice president of Wilmington-based commercial real estate firm Cape Fear Commercial.

“We have seen investors, however, capitalize on this demand/supply gap by purchasing and repositioning older office buildings to make them class A product again.”

He said an example is Landfall Park North and South on Eastwood Road, where the new owner of the two buildings made significant capital improvements to the common area as well as helped new tenants modernize the older upfits, allowing the property to command higher rents.

Loukas, Lindsey Hess and Vin Wells of Cape Fear Commercial represented the landlord, and Spruill Thompson, also of Cape Fear Commercial, represented the tenants in the lease of more than 25,000 square feet in Landfall Park South to two tenants.

New office space is on the way to the area via a project on Oleander Drive called Bradley Creek Station, in midtown at The Offices at Barclay and at Autumn Hall on Eastwood Drive.

M A G A Z I N E

2 MULTIFAMILY MULTIPLIES More apartments are coming to Wilmington, and the vacancy rate has remained low in recent years.

Downtown apartment communities that have recently or will soon break ground include Pier 33 apartments (300 units), another phase of City Block and The Flats on Front.

Meanwhile, apartments are planned in other parts of Wilmington, including the Whiskey Branch neighborhood underway on South College Road.

Several apartment complexes in the Wilmington area evacuated their tenants in October after finding damage from Hurricane Florence, which hit the coast in September.

Some of those complexes were still under repair nearly six months later.

Meanwhile, developers were in the midst of planning more new apartment complexes in the Wilmington area as of press time, including a project on Oleander Drive that would replace a former movie theater and parking lot. The project would add more than 200 units to the area’s apartment inventory, along with commercial space. The zoning application for the apartments says the project will help replace residential units that have been eliminated over time as commercial space has grown in the busy corridor.

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DRIVING THE DISCUSSION

RETAIL REMIX

P3S PERPETUATE

Numerous existing and proposed road projects are rolling through New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties. Some are funded; some aren’t. All road projects tend, however, to be part of the commercial real estate discussion.

“But even the ones that aren’t funded, if there’s discussion about them in the market, they’re likely to have some impact on the sites in the path of those potential projects,” said Cal Morgan, owner of commercial real estate appraisal firm JC Morgan in Wilmington. “So if I’m a buyer and I’m looking for a location for my fast-food restaurant or my whatever, and I have three or four sites to choose from, well if site No. 2 is located in this area of potential impact, without knowing the future, buyers might stay away from that area.”

Meanwhile, some road projects are critical to a commercial development, including the extension of Drysdale Drive into a site for the major mixed-use project called CenterPoint, planned on property on Eastwood and Military Cutoff roads.

Developer David Swain, of Swain & Associates, said no aspect of CenterPoint will open until the extension is complete.

Some national chains are giving up the ghost, closing stores throughout the U.S., including in Wilmington.

But that doesn’t mean they won’t be replaced.

Retail space is included in most mixed-use projects on the horizon in the Wilmington area, including The Avenue on Military Cutoff Road, CenterPoint, Autumn Hall’s next phase and more.

“The developers who work with these guys on a regular basis, they’re proposing a lot of retail to be developed over the next decade They’re in the know; they work hand in hand with (the retailers).

They don’t build it on spec,” Morgan said. “They build it with agreements at least on some of the space. So while some are closing others will be expanding.”

While J. Crew and Eddie Bauer clothing stores left Mayfaire Town Center earlier this year, the center already had a replacement for the Eddie Bauer space.

Women’s clothing store and national chain Loft, once known as Ann Taylor Loft, has leased the space.

Public-private partnerships (also called P3s) have been gaining steam in the Wilmington area for the past few years.

Examples include River Place, a 13-story mixed-use project under construction in downtown Wilmington, and a new on-campus housing community at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Although construction won’t start this year on Project Grace, another potential P3 in downtown Wilmington, it’s a high-profile proposal that could involve one of the city’s most prominent developers, Zimmer Development Co. The firm and the team it has assembled have proposed a threephase construction approach to redevelop a New Hanover Countyowned downtown block that includes the main branch of the county’s public library.

Phase 1 includes building a new downtown library as well as new space for the Cape Fear Museum that would be about 80,000 square feet, along with public green space and 125 residential units.

Phase 2 includes 125 more residential units and street-level retail, with a retail and office complex in the final phase.

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PROFILE

N E W ON THE

SCENE

BY TERESA MCLAMB

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PHOTO BY MICHAEL CLINE SPENCER

PROFILE

C o m m e rci a l a g e n t AY I Z E GLENN G R AY ’ s l i f e e x p e ri e n c e s led him

Queens t o LA t o

from

Wilmington

real estate

A

yize Glenn Gray grew up in the church. But not just any church. He grew up in the Greater Allen AME Cathedral of Jamaica, Queens, New York, which the Rev. Floyd Flake led from 1,400 members to 23,000. Flake also grew the church into one of the largest urban development institutions in the state.

Gray didn’t give this much thought when he was working in the church as a youngster. His mother and both grandmothers were very active in the church. Being there was just something he did, along with helping to care for the bulding and grounds.

As an adult, Gray realizes his winding path to commercial and residential real estate sales and development is rooted in his association with Flake.

“Floyd H. Flake, who is one of my mentors, had a vision to support the community through economic development. He did it by developing real estate,” Gray said. The church’s business manager, Howard Henderson, was also a real estate investor who purchased buildings and fixed them up for rental.

“He was able to get a bigger life and lived in Manhattan,” Gray said.

“Those early days … I know the seeds were planted for real estate development, economic empowerment and social justice.”

Gray’s mother chose to send him to high school in a more affluent part of the city, where he mingled with a more diverse population than in his neighborhood. “That opportunity changed my life. I had never been exposed to white children at that level. The students were mostly white and Asian.”

He was given the opportunity to participate in a co-op program that sent him to school two weeks followed by two weeks working for a corporation in Manhattan, and the cycle would start again.

“When I graduated from high school, I knew I wanted to explore and expand,” Gray said.

He majored in communications at Clark Atlanta University and became an intern in a film office. During his fourth year in college, he learned of the possibility of an internship in TV production and advertising for European companies operating in Nigeria. “I had dreadlocks and was into the Rastafarian movement” so the idea intrigued him. He was accepted into an internship at Smith Studios in Lagos. “It was a growing experience.

I worked on presidential campaigns, flew in private jets of rich Africans, lived in the ghetto and traveled.”

Returning to New York after a year, he recalled how enthralled he had been on the film set in Atlanta.

He connected with a friend working in the industry and gradually turned part-time gigs into full time as a production assistant.

From there he moved to location management in New York before moving to Los Angeles.

“I met with everyone I could. I took a couple of free internships, gave up income to begin again,” Gray said.

He said that led to a development job at 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, and co-founding of BUS Films.

“Hollywood is interdisciplinary like real estate. You have to have a vision

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to see it through,” he said. “A lot of money gets spent before anything is real. At one point I had to use my own money to fund my projects, and it didn’t work out.”

Gray took the opportunity to reflect, to reconnect to his spiritual nature and to rebuild. During that time, he worked briefly as a mortgage broker. His first child was born during the economic downturn. “I decided to stay home and raise my daughter … Today I see the fruit and flowers of that time.”

He said he then took a serious look at real estate. With the seeds planted by his childhood mentors, he moved his family to Durham, where he dove into urban single-family refurbishment and infill projects.

“Real estate development allows me to express my desire as an entrepreneur, my ability to connect with people, to facilitate and connect transactions, to bring something to fruition. It’s a perfect fit for me,” he said.

While Gray was away from Durham on business, his wife, Jill, who grew up on the beach near Los Angeles, discovered Wilmington and its beaches. “She wanted to move,” he said.

They spent some time visiting, and he began networking “trying to get a grasp of what this place has to offer.”

Continuing with his Durham projects, Gray hung his license with Coldwell Banker Commercial Sun Coast Partners in March 2018. The family moved here in September.

While working on deals in both cities, he’s also attended the Urban Land Institute, and has been accepted to the Master of Real Estate Development program at Auburn University.

He said he’s excited about the leaders he has met here. Gray sees possibilities for projects that can make a difference, and he’s encouraged by the number of young professionals he sees moving in. “I’m a big fan for the possibilities for our urban core.”

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AFTER THE

S TO R M

BY JESSICA MAURER

The Oceanic restaurant, shown above in September shortly after Hurricane Florence, is planning to reopen soon.

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PHOTOS BY MEGAN DEITZ

Wrightsville Beach’s surfside Oceanic was just one of the businesses impacted by September’s destructive storm. The rebuild has given the restaurant the chance to take stock of its next chapter.

Amber Moshakos, president of LM Restaurants, and her father and company co-founder, Lou, at the restaurant in February.

I

n the days and hours leading up to Hurricane Florence, LM Restaurants, which owns and operates Oceanic, activated its storm preparedness teams to carry out hurricane prep protocols at the restaurant group’s properties throughout the Southeast.

The company relies heavily on those protocols when bad weather is on the horizon, and they are updated with each pending storm. While preparation for each storm varies, there are systems in place to help managers deal with food, beverage and equipment storage, as well as how to secure the interior and exterior of the

buildings in advance of a storm.

That’s what happened last September as Florence made its approach toward Wilmington.

As part of the prep plans, it’s also imperative that the entire staff is aware of the chain of command and the procedures to follow in advance, during and after a storm, said Katherine Costa Goldfaden, director of brands for Raleigh-based LM Restaurants.

Oceanic has been a fixture on the Wrightsville Beach dining scene for nearly 30 years. Perhaps due to a major renovation to the building in 2012 and subsequent renovation of the Crystal Pier in 2015, Oceanic and the pier did not incur structural damages as a result of Florence. But the water

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damage was extensive, and the restaurant has remained closed since the storm while under construction.

LM officials hope to reopen soon but are taking their time in the rebuild to make some changes to the popular restaurant at the same time.

Oceanic wasn’t the only major Wrightsville Beach institution hit hard by the storm. Just down the beach, the Blockade Runner Beach Resort also closed, with a portion of the hotel reopening last month. South Beach Grill, in operation for 22 years on South Lumina Avenue, was shuttered for repairs until mid-February.

“This event allowed us to ask ourselves ‘What does the next chapter of Oceanic look like?’” said

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Amber Moshakos, president of LM Restaurants. “Florence gave us the opportunity to pause and reimagine what Oceanic could and should be for our team members and guests.”

A family-run business founded

by Moshakos’ parents, Lou and Joy, LM took over Oceanic in 2008 when it acquired five local eateries from the Atlantic Quest Corp. The other restaurants acquired at that time were Bluewater and Henry’s – still in operation today – and Eddie Romanelli’s locations in Wilmington and Leland.

The Wilmington location of Eddie Romanelli is now another LM concept, Hops Supply Co., while the Eddie Romanelli’s in Leland closed in 2016.

Today, LM Restaurants is a hospitality management company for seven brands and over two dozen restaurants across the Southeast. The company’s flagship brand, Carolina Ale House, now has 29 locations,

including one in Wilmington. Three new brands are in development for 2019 in South Florida: Oceanic at Pompano Beach Pier and Lucky Fish Beach Bar and Grill, both in Pompano Beach, and Morea in Fort Lauderdale.

Locally, the only other LM restaurant to incur damages as a result of Florence, which made landfall near Wrightsville Beach on Sept. 14, was Bluewater, which reopened in stages, beginning in early October.

Amber Moshakos said that after 10 years running Oceanic, the company now has an understanding of what it takes to operate the restaurant successfully, and officials wanted to take their time in determining how this unexpected remodel could help them gain operational efficiencies and improve diners’ experiences.

“If we weren’t exploring updating the space, we certainly would have been open by now,” Amber

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Moshakos said. “It has always been our philosophy to reinvest in the communities and buildings in which we do business, and we have a really strong commitment to this building.

Like many families, we have created lots of special memories here.”

The building is near where Lumina Pavilion, a popular entertainment center in the early 1900s, once stood, and the restaurant was named after the Oceanic Hotel, which was destroyed in Wrightsville Beach’s massive 1934 fire.

When the restaurant reopens this spring, guests will find new, unobstructed views of the ocean as soon as they walk in the door, Amber Moshakos said. The main bar has been repositioned so the seats overlook the dunes and jetty. Private dining spaces on all three levels are being updated to allow for more flexibility in the types of events that can be accommodated, and the dining rooms will be outfitted with new flooring, paint, fixtures and furnishings.

While a reopening date has not yet been determined, the group is pushing for Easter Sunday, which is April 21, and expects to hire 150 employees for the summer season.

“This is a landmark restaurant with a wonderful history, and we want to make our friends and team members proud,” Goldfaden said. We know the updates and our increased ocean views will be proof of our commitment to our community.”

M A R K E T SNAPSHOT

MARKET SNAPSHOT

W I L M I N G T O N A R E A C O M M E R C I A L R E A L E S TAT E H I G H L I G H T S

2018

ADDITIONS TO THE CAPE FEAR REGION'S RETAIL MARKET*

* A selection, but not all, ranked by size

2

5

4

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PROJECT

ADDRESS

SIZE (sq ft)

1

PUBLIX AT THE ARBORETUM AT SURF CITY

2765 N.C. 210, HAMPSTEAD

45,600

2

PUBLIX AT OCEAN ISLE BEACH MARKET PLACE

1560 MARKET PLACE BLVD., OCEAN ISLE BEACH

39,500

ASHLEY FURNITURE HOMESTORE

6832 MARKET ST., WILMINGTON

33,000

4

FLIP N FLY AT MAYFAIRE TOWN CENTER

830 INSPIRATION DRIVE, WILMINGTON

28,000

5

EARTH FARE AT RENAISSANCE MARKET

943 MILITARY CUTOFF ROAD, WILMINGTON

27,000

6

WEST MARINE AT RENAISSANCE MARKET

929 MILITARY CUTOFF ROAD, WILMINGTON

14,250

7

LIVING LOCAL FURNITURE

6508 MARKET ST., WILMINGTON

12,000

8

DOLLAR GENERAL

406 DAWSON ST., WILMINGTON

9,100

9

DOLLAR GENERAL

3606 CAROLINA BEACH ROAD, WILMINGTON

9,100

3

SOURCE: GREATER WILMINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL; COSTAR, YEAR-END 2018 REPORT

FOR ALL OF YOUR COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE NEEDS IN BRUNSWICK COUNTY

DAVID STUART

WAYNE DURHAM

KELLY STUART

CHRIS BRYAN

(910) 368-1187 david@carolinascommercial.com

(910) 612-2007 wayne@waynedurham.com

(910) 393-7275 kelly@carolinascommercial.com

(910) 443-1189 chris.byran@cbsloane.com

(910) 579-1808 | (877) 369-5777 | www.sloanecommercial.com 790-1 Sunset Blvd. N. Sunset Beach, NC 28468

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PREMIUM MEMBER

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OFFICE SPACE

LARGEST EXISTING

MARKET SNAPSHOT

BY SUBMARKET

1

MARKET

RBA*

VACANCY RATE

HOSPITAL/INDEPENDENCE

2,582,883

2.1%

DOWNTOWN

2,108,534

3.2%

MIDTOWN

2,053,726

4.3%

LANDFALL

1,757,683

2.1%

WEST BRUNSWICK

1,124,244

2.8%

SOUTHPORT/ST JAMES

690,043

1.9%

LELAND

537,093

1.1%

MARKET STREET CORRIDOR

474,375

3.3%

AIRPORT

364,228

3.2%

EAST PENDER COUNTY

339,876

5.9%

MONKEY JUNCTION

286,452

1%

PORT

258,924

0.8%

OGDEN/PORTERS NECK

254,034

23.6%

WEST PENDER COUNTY

252,740

4.8%

CAROLINA BEACH

90,052

5.1%

2 3 4 5 6

TOP15

7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15

* Total Rentable Building Area in square feet

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SOURCE: COSTAR YEAR-END 2018 REPORT

TOP 8

MARKET SNAPSHOT

COMMERCIAL SALES of 2018

1

2

PROPERTY

3

4

ADDRESS

PRICE

BUYER

SELLER

1

ST. ANDREWS RESERVE APARTMENTS

814 ST. ANDREWS DRIVE

$48,500,000

KETTLER, A VIRGINIA-BASED FIRM

AGM WILMINGTON LLC

2

CROSSWINDS APARTMENTS

1108 ST. ANDREWS DRIVE

$43,000,000

FLORIDA-BASED PRIDEROCK CAPITAL PARTNERS

BEDROCK HOLDINGS II LLC

3

MYRTLE LANDING

7220 MYRTLE GROVE ROAD

$30,250,000

SPYGLASS CAPITAL PARTNERS, BASED IN NEW JERSEY

TRIBUTE COMPANIES

4

THE PRESERVE AT PINE VALLEY

3314 WICKSLOW ROAD

$18,425,000

LATITUDE REAL ESTATE INVESTORS OF BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF.

GOVERNOURS SQUARE CLUB LLC

5

HANOVER LANDING APARTMENTS

3439 WILSHIRE BLVD.

$16,250,000

HANOVER LANDING 2018 LLC, BASED IN NEW JERSEY

HERITAGE HANOVER LLC

6

STAYBRIDGE SUITES WILMINGTON

5010 NEW CENTRE DRIVE

$13,660,000

LOF2 WILMINGTON LLC

TB1 WILMINGTON LLC

7

MAJORITY OF OFFICE BUILDING

1001 MILITARY CUTOFF ROAD

$11,917,000

MILITARY CUTOFF ASSOCIATES LLC

PALM PARK HOLDINGS LLC

8

SECURCARE SELF STORAGE

110 KERR AVE. S.

$10,518,000

NSA PROPERTY HOLDINGS LLC

MARTIN VENTURES II LLC

SOURCES: NEW HANOVER COUNTY TAX DEPARTMENT AND REGISTER OF DEEDS; GREATER WILMINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL

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THE TAKEAWAY

TURNING TIDES photo by MICHAEL CLINE SPENCER

Before Hurricane Florence hit last fall, Tidewater Brewing Co.’s partners were almost ready to open in a circa 1940 building on Princess Street. A taproom and bar area had been built, the piping system finished for the brewing equipment. Final inspections

for occupancy were the only things left.

But winds during Florence sheared off the roof (shown above on Sept. 24, 10 days after the hurricane) and days of rain caused water damage. The roof has since been replaced, this time with hurricane clips and other features to

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give it protection against future storms, said Lydia Berzonsky, one of the owners of Tidewater, which is leasing the building. She said they don’t have an exact timeline for when construction will finish so they can finally open – but it’s something they still hope to do.

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