400 South Tryon office tower sold to Trinity Capital Advisors, DRA Advisors

Just days after announcing that it is building a 14-story office tower at Morehead and Tryon streets, Trinity Capital Advisors announced Friday that it has bought the 33-story 400 South Tryon office tower in a partnership with a New York-based investment group.

Trinity Capital bought the 584,000-square-foot building in partnership with DRA Advisors. The tower is 92 percent occupied, mostly by Duke Energy. "This is a terrific acquisition for Trinity and DRA," said Gary Chesson, founding partner at Trinity Capital, citing the accelerating growth along South Tryon and near the BB&T BallPark.

Trinity Partners has been hired to lease and manage the building. Rob Cochran, Bill Collins, Jud Ryan and Craig Evans with Cassidy Turley brokered the sale on behalf of the undisclosed seller. The sales price was also undisclosed.

The tower joins other uptown landmarks that have changed hands in recent years. One Wells Fargo Center, the Hearst Tower and the Fifth Third Center were all sold in 2012. The 19-story 525 N. Tryon St. tower, owned by Parkway Properties, is currently listed for sale by commercial real estate firm HFF.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/10/09/5231137/525-n-tryon-street-office-tower.html#.VDgmGvldVTJ#storylink=cpy

Trinity Capital Advisors buys note on the struggling Steel Yard

Trinity Capital Advisors has bought the note on the Steel Yard in Southend.

Trinity Capital Advisors of Charlotte partnered with Urdang Capital Management, a division of Bank of New York Mellon Corp., to buy the property, which includes three buildings totaling 78,539 square feet on 2.78 acres.

Located along South Boulevard and Tremont Avenue, the property includes the historic Tompkins Toolworx building and is home to Sullivan's Steakhouse. The Steel Yard had been struggling and was in default. Earlier this year, the property lost a major tenant, the Mexican restaurant La Paz, because of a landlord dispute.

"We've been tracking this asset and its challenged capitalization for a long time, and this note purchase allowed us to gain control of fundamentally strong real estate at a compelling basis," said Walker Collier, Trinity Capital's managing director. "This project has suffered over the last year due to its capitalization structure, and now we're ready to re-position and stabilize the asset within the marketplace."

The Steel Yard had been in default on its loan but the note has since been prepaid, according to a review of data provided by Bloomberg News.

Trinity Capital Advisors has been on a buying spree. At the beginning of the year, the Charlotte real estate investment company bought the debt and equity interest in NASCAR Plaza in uptown. The 393,000-square-foot office tower had been scheduled to be sold by its lender at foreclosure auction. For that deal, Trinity partnered with Rubenstein Partners, a Philadelphia-based real estate fund manager.

Trinity Capital Advisors has hired sister company Trinity Partners to manage the Steel Yard. Trinity Partners' Rhea Green will handle office leasing and Charles Thrift at Collet & Associates will handle retail leasing.

Urdang Capital Management is the sole real estate investment management subsidiary within The Bank of New York Mellon Corp., and ranks as one of the largest global asset managers with $1.3 trillion in assets under management.

Trinity Capital has acquired and developed a portfolio totaling four million square feet with a total cost of more than $400 million.