Want to Own a Piece of History? Smaller Cities With Historic Downtowns Offer Options
In an historic village deep in the Chicago suburbs, a local private investor recently bought a 68-year-old downtown building with an Italian restaurant as a longtime tenant. This old setting highlights an area of emerging interest.
The investor paid $952,500 for the 6,069-square-foot building in Plainfield, Illinois, according to the Boulder Group, the brokerage that represented the seller in the deal. The building's tenant, Capri Sogno, has been there since 1988 and has no plans to leave.
Investment opportunities in historic areas like this village exist in many places across the country.
“Older downtown areas in mature suburban settings have demand as investors are attracted to walkable neighborhoods with high barriers to entry and historically low vacancy rates,” Randy Blankstein, president of the Wilmette, Illinois-based Boulder Group, said in an email to CoStar News.
Plainfield’s downtown landed on the National Register of Historic Places seven years ago. The village’s roots date to the early 1800s, and later, two famous transcontinental highways were built, Lincoln Highway and U.S. Route 66, that intersected downtown. The recently sold building sits along Lockport Street, which was the Lincoln Highway route through town.
Plainfield's downtown is a walkable district with shopping, dining and entertainment in a fast-growing county outside of Chicago. Average annual household income for the city tops $107,000, according to the Boulder Group, which attracted a decent amount of interest in the Plainfield building, said Blankstein.
Owning a piece of history doesn’t necessarily have to take an investor to an older suburb of a big city. Sometimes opportunity exists in smaller up-and-coming towns or on an island. They may also fall into one of the 8,700 federal "opportunity zones" created around the country by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that reduces capital gains taxes for investors in them.
Here is a sampling of some historic U.S. buildings on the market:
224 N. Sycamore St., Petersburg, Virginia: $250,000 asking price
The 3,354-square-foot building was built in 1818 and sits along a row of attached buildings within the Petersburg Courthouse Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
Petersburg, which is about 24 miles south of Richmond along the Appomattox River, dates to a fort built there in 1645. The British captured the city during the American Revolutionary War, and later it was the site of a major Civil War battle.
It had been a big tobacco and textile town until the 1980s, when it went into a prolonged decline. But like a lot of downtowns around the country, the area has seen a bit of a resurgence.
Kevin Specter with Specter Properties, which has the listing for the seller, said that older buildings in the area have been converted to mostly residential. A lot of the people living in them commute to nearby Fort Lee for work or up to Richmond, a drive that is the “easiest thing in the world,” Specter said.
He said there’s now a nightlife downtown thanks to some 20 restaurants that have opened there over the years.
A buyer would need to find a tenant or tenants for the building, which has been renovated. The first floor is set up as retail space and a two-floor living area is above the space.
Specter said it would be “ideal for a law firm” because of its proximity to courts across the street. In addition to being in an historic district, the building is within a federal opportunity zone.
223 Linden St., Fort Collins, Colorado: $2.9 million
The 11,750-square-foot, two-story building dates to 1901 and sits in Old Town, a part of downtown Fort Collins, Colorado, that has many restored historic buildings. Old Town is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Fort Collins, which is about 65 miles north of Denver, started as a U.S. Army outpost in 1864. It is also home to Colorado State University.
This spring, the city is scheduled to renovate the block where the building sits. The work will include revamping it to a “convertible street” in which the road can be closed for pedestrians only for special events, such as the annual Bohemian Nights at NewWestFest. Bonnie Raitt was last year’s headline act.
The building has two retail tenants — a sushi restaurant and a bar — that are on month-to-month leases, Josh Guernsey, managing partner of Waypoint Real Estate, which has the listing, said by email. The second floor is built-out office space and vacant.
Guernsey said the idea is to either sell it to an owner-user or investor or fully lease up the space with long-term tenants once the city’s work is done this fall. There’s “a lot of flexibility in our marketing,” he noted.
308 Kamehameha Ave., Hilo, Hawaii: $2.98 million
A Japanese businessman named Sadanosuke Hata completed this nearly 19,000-square-foot building in 1912, and it has held a prominent place in the city’s history. Hilo is on the Island of Hawaii, also known as the Big Island.
Hata sold silk fabric among other products from the building. Today, it is about 88% leased, according to CoStar data. The largest tenant is Café Pesto, a restaurant that has been in the building since 1992.
The S. Hati Building has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1991 and also is located in a federal opportunity zone. Its masonry construction helped it withstand two tsunamis hitting Hilo.
Sugarcane plantations on the island drove Hilo’s economy for a large part of the 20th century, but the industry has declined in recent decades. There are still agriculture operations on the island: Hilo is the headquarters for Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corp., one of the largest processors of macadamia seeds. And commercial fishing businesses send fish such as Mahi Mahi, grouper and yellowfin tuna around the world.
Tourism is a big part of the economy since cruise ships stop there. The city’s proximity to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and forest preserves draws other tourists.
142 Main St., Nashua, New Hampshire: $2.95 million
Known today as the Landmark Building, this five-story building opened in 1892 as a lodge for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal order dating back about 200 years.
The building has 44,691 square feet of mostly office space and is a prominent structure in the downtown area. Street-level retail fills the first floor space. CoStar data shows the building is about 85% leased with mostly small tenants.
Textile mills powered by the nearby rivers marked the city’s early history. The industry died out after World War II, and the local economy suffered. A defense contractor named Sanders Associates relocated its headquarters to Nashua in 1952 from Waltham, Massachusetts, west of Boston. Sanders is now part of BAE Systems, which is based in the United Kingdom.
Although about 50 miles north of Boston, Nashua is considered part of the greater Boston region.
Downtown Nashua has been in revitalization mode. The Landmark Building, which is just inside one of the city's opportunity zones, has been "fully modernized" but "retains its old world charm and architectural integrity," according to Hunneman, the real estate firm with the listing.
