HFF announces the sale of Venable Center, an 87,416-square-foot, three-building creative office/R&D complex in Durham, North Carolina.

The HFF team represented the seller, FCPSM, and procured the buyer, a joint venture between Wheelock Street Capital, SLI Capital and Trinity Capital Advisors.

Venable Center is situated on a 3.76-acre site at 302 East Pettigrew Street in the Downtown Durham submarket. This dynamic CBD location is within walking distance of the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, Ponysaurus Brewing, American Tobacco Campus and a plentiful array of restaurants and cafes, arts and cultural venues, shopping and fitness facilities. Additionally, it is poised to benefit from the future Durham-Orange Light Rail and Dillon Street Station, which is adjacent to the property. Venable Center was originally constructed as a tobacco warehouse in the early 1900s and underwent extensive renovations in 2006, converting the property to creative office and R&D space. The property features polished wood floors, lofted ceilings, exposed brick, heart-pine beams, an open layout and 20,000 square feet of premier R&D and lab space suited to Raleigh-Durham’s life science and technology tenants. Venable Center is fully leased to a variety of STEM tenants, including Precision Biosciences, and offers the potential for future upside via additional development on the site.

The HFF investment advisory team representing the seller consisted of senior director Scot Humphrey, senior managing director Ryan Clutter, and directors Chris Lingerfelt and Zack Drozda.

“Venable Center is highly representative of what institutional investors are looking for in southeast markets right now,” Humphrey said. “Urban, creative ‘brick-and-beam’ office in high growth markets is in high demand at the moment, and this opportunity garnered a robust amount of interest.”

Holliday GP Corp. is a North Carolina licensed real estate broker.

About FCP

FCP? is a privately held real estate investment company that has invested in or financed more than $6 billion in assets since its founding in 1999. FCP invests directly and with operating partners in commercial and residential assets. The firm makes equity and mezzanine investments in income-producing and development properties. Based in Chevy Chase, MD, FCP invests both its commingled, discretionary funds and separate accounts targeted at major real estate markets in the United States. For further information on FCP, please visit www.fcpdc.com.

About Wheelock Street Capital
Wheelock Street Capital (wheelockst.com) was formed in 2008 by Rick Kleeman and Jonathan Paul, two veteran real estate private equity investors, each with over 25 years of broad real estate transaction experience across all major asset classes. Wheelock has since raised over $2 billion in capital commitments and is currently investing its fifth fund comprising $725 million of commitments from leading pension funds, endowments and foundations. Wheelock will invest in a broad range of real estate assets throughout the United States. The fund may invest directly or with high quality joint venture partners through a variety of capital structures and transaction types, including acquisitions, restructurings, and recapitalizations.

About Trinity Capital Advisors

Trinity Capital Advisors focuses on the acquisition and development of institutional-quality commercial real estate in the southeastern United States. The firm has invested more than $2.3 billion acquiring and developing more than 18 million square feet of the most successful workplace real estate projects in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida, including CBD office towers, industrial portfolios, suburban office parks, and mixed-use developments. Investments are capitalized through various Trinity Capital investment vehicles and partnerships with some of the country’s top institutional investors. Learn more at trinitycapitaladvisors.com.

About SLI Capital

SLI Capital (www.slicap.com) is a Raleigh, NC-based real estate investment firm targeting real estate investments in institutionally liquid growth markets in the Southeastern United States. SLI employs an investment strategy that includes core allocations to income-oriented investments and non-core investments focused on opportunistic alpha generation. The firm invests across a variety of asset types and throughout the capital stack with an emphasis on multi-family and office.

About HFF

HFF and its affiliates operate out of 26 offices and are a leading provider of commercial real estate and capital markets services to the global commercial real estate industry. HFF, together with its affiliates, offers clients a fully integrated capital markets platform, including debt placement, investment advisory, equity placement, funds marketing, M&A and corporate advisory, loan sales and loan servicing. HFF, HFF Real Estate Limited, HFF Securities L.P. and HFF Securities Limited are owned by HFF, Inc. (NYSE: HF). For more information, please visit hfflp.com or follow HFF on Twitter @HFF.