Commercial Confidential: One Wells Fargo Center

Editor’s note: “Commercial Confidential” is a Mecklenburg Times profile of a commercial property in the Charlotte area.  

When One Wells Fargo Center opened in the late 1980s, it went by a different name, One First Union Center.

But as the banks occupying the building changed — Wachovia’s been a tenant, for example — so did the name of one of Charlotte’s most iconic buildings.

The building’s been through other changes, too.

Andrew Jenkins, managing partner for Karnes Research Co., which tracks Mecklenburg County’s commercial real estate market, said that while One Wells Fargo Center is still considered to be Class A office space, it’s no longer one of the top office buildings in the city.

Jenkins said the building’s age, and the addition of newer space in the city, means One Wells Fargo Center is now only in the top 10 or top 20 of Charlotte office buildings.

With a vacancy rate of less than 3 percent, Jenkins said, the building should continue to do fine, barring something drastic.

“With Wells being two-thirds of the space, it is obviously going to be an interesting piece (if they were to leave),” he said. “But if they have no intention of leaving, they’re going to be OK.”

While the building has nicknames among the public, such as the jukebox building or the radio building, Fred Klein III, partner with Charlotte-based Childress Klein Properties, which owns the building, said it wasn’t designed to look like anything in particular.

“It’s certainly unique on the Charlotte skyline with the granite and glass and its barrel top,” Klein said.

Klein said that, throughout the building’s history, it has had a very stable tenant base and Childress has invested in upgrades to its mechanical systems and elevators.

Building name: One Wells Fargo Center

Address: 301 S. College St.

Square feet: 954,531

Year built: 1988

Building owner: Charlotte-based Childress Klein Properties

Management company: Childress Klein Properties

Leasing company: Charlotte-based CK-Southern Associates

Architect: Dallas-based JPJ Architects

General contractor: Charlotte-based J.A. Jones Construction (no longer in business)

Vacancy rate: 2.2 percent (according to Karnes Research Co.)

Major tenants (square feet occupied): Wells Fargo (686,000), Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice (92,000), Poyner & Spruill (37,000)

Did you know? At 42 floors, One Wells Fargo Center was the tallest building in Charlotte for four years until Bank of America Corporate Center, which has 60 floors, was built in 1992.

GUION can be reached at [email protected], (704) 817-1344 or on Twitter at @paytonguion.