First Interstate Plaza building is sold

Downtown site to be home for ‘New Mexican’

A Daytona Beach, Fla., real estate investment trust has bought the 137,000-square-foot First Interstate Plaza building in downtown Santa Fe for $16.3 million.

CTO Realty Growth Inc. closed on the purchase Monday from First Interstate Plaza Crow Holdings.

First Interstate Plaza is the largest private sector office building in Santa Fe, said James Wheeler, owner of the Commercial Properties real estate firm in Santa Fe.

“I can’t think of any bigger,” Wheeler said.

The four-story, mixed-use building will be the new home of The New Mexican early next year. Other tenants include Deloitte, Morgan Stanley, The Bull Ring, Regus, Avalon Trust Co., Raymond James and Toyopolis.

CTO reports the building is only 66 percent occupied, which is appealing for building owners confident of being able to turn around properties with large vacancies and increase the property value.

“Our acquisition in Santa Fe is a unique situation where we are able to opportunistically acquire an extremely well-located property with immediate repositioning upside in a dynamic market with attractive growth prospects,” John P. Albright, president and CEO of CTO Realty Growth, said in a news release.

CTO also owns the Fidelity office building in Albuquerque, Crossroads Towne Center in Chandler, Ariz., and the Carpenter Hotel in Austin, Texas.

But most of its holdings are in Florida.

“Santa Fe has several distinct economic and lifestyle demand drivers that have driven outsized growth for the market in recent years,” Albright said. “We’re optimistic the strength of the market and our repositioning plan for the property can drive outsized risk-adjusted returns for our investors once the asset is stabilized.”

First Interstate Plaza has a 9,000-square-foot vacancy that CTO envisions for potential residential customers as well as a 12,500-square-foot vacancy that could become a restaurant. Tai Bixby of NAI Sunvista is the leasing agent. Colliers is the property manager.

CTO Realty Growth owns 19 commercial properties with a combined 2.4 million square feet in high-growth markets in several states, according to the company website.