Word on the street: Big chunk of downtown Asheville real estate set to sell

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Word on the street is that a large chunk of real estate in downtown Asheville is set to be sold to a New York-based investment group.

The property is rumored to include a number of buildings around Pack Square in the heart of downtown, which is booming with increased visitation by tourists and a hotel construction boom. The properties in the deal, which include offices and restaurants, are rumored to be selling for $25 million or more.

Sources say the principals are: The Providence Group, a Charlotte-based commercial real estate firm; and Wicker Park Capital, which specializes in acquiring urban retail properties.

A similar sale of downtown property took place in 2004, when Pack Square Investors, LLC, a group of investors from Hendersonville, Asheville and Charleston, S.C., bought the property from its former owners, according to a Hendersonville Times-News story. Those former owners included Asheville restaurateur and now real estate agent Bill Byrne, who owned the Cafe on the Square restaurant with his wife in the 1990s, and Ted Prosser, a real estate developer.

More as I get it.