Ideally, Wachovia wouldn't be on the verge of being bought out, and the Wachovia Center in downtown Winston-Salem would be owned by local interests. But we're a long way from living in ideal times, at least economically, and the reality is that one set of out-of-town owners has bought the 28-story landmark from another set of out-of-town owners. Yet there's reason for hope about this $36-million deal on the city's premier downtown skyscraper.
Obviously, investor Mark Karasick, and David Werner, his apparent partner in this deal, are in it for the money to be made by reselling the building. In a city where fiercely independent business leaders once called their own shots, it's disconcerting not to have local forces driving a deal that could play a major role in downtown revitalization. But the days of local kingpins running the game are long gone. And there's reason to believe that this deal could be a good one.
For one thing, the fact that nationally known investors are rolling the dice on the 13-year-old Wachovia Center on North Main Street says a lot for the Twin City.
"Having a local owner to work with would have been nice, but that's not the nature of how most real-estate investment trusts work," Mayor Allen Joines told the Journal's Richard Craver. "It's encouraging that an investment group of their stature has seen enough potential in the Wachovia Center to buy it and hopefully improve it."
The new owners may improve the building, which is the city's tallest, and increase occupancy. Wachovia signed a long lease at a low rate to keep its space in the building after it sold it to another company a few years ago. The length and low cost of the lease could help persuade Wells Fargo, the company buying Wachovia out, to keep jobs in Forsyth County, as others have noted. Wachovia has more than 740 employees over 17 floors of the building, including 600 in the wealth-management division, part of 2,900 employees in Forsyth County.
We certainly hope that most, if not all, of those jobs will stay here, although there aren't any guarantees.
Whatever happens, let's hope the new owners can fill the building. That won't be easy, given the economic climate. But the nearby Piedmont Triad Research Park may generate new interest in the Wachovia Center, as some real-estate officials have noted.
Private enterprise ought to drive this deal. The city of Winston-Salem provided nearly $5 million to Wachovia toward the building, the lion's share of which was in subsidy payments for the adjacent parking deck. Those payments ended in 2005. The city, already cutting costs as much as it can, is not in a position to provide more money.
At the same time, the last thing Winston-Salem needs is for this landmark to lose tenants. The best we can hope for is that Wells Fargo will keep those Wachovia jobs in the building -- and the new owners will bring in more tenants.
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