Downtown’s Wytestone Plaza office building trades for $26M ahead of apartment conversion

Wytestone Plaza, center, is set to be converted into over 300 apartments. (Mike Platania photo)

The two downtown blocks bordered by Seventh, Ninth, Main and Cary streets may soon be one of the busiest development hotbeds in the city.

The Wytestone Plaza office tower at 801 E. Main St. sold last week for $26.1 million, city property records show.

The deal included the vacant, 17-story office building as well as a five-story parking deck at 800 E. Cary St. and a 0.2-acre surface parking lot at 13 S. Eighth St.

The buyer was an entity tied to Steven Walker of debt advisory firm RPC Realty Capital and Nick Patel, president of local hotelier Kalyan Hospitality. The new owners are planning to convert the 280,000-square-foot building into 302 apartments.

Dubbed the Altitude on Main, it’s one of three significant developments planned for that part of downtown.

Directly across Eighth Street from Wytestone Plaza is a former Dominion Energy office building that Douglas Development bought last year with plans to turn it into hundreds of apartments and hotel rooms. Next to Douglas’ site is a state-owned lot where a mystery New York developer is looking to build a massive mixed-use tower that could reach over 30 stories and 400 feet.

Steven Walker

The residential conversion of Wytestone Plaza has been about two and a half years in the making. 

The building’s previous owner, Fredericksburg-based developer Vakos Cos., began planning the project in 2022, but a year later Walker’s group took it over and put the 1960s-era office under contract. 

Walker said they spent the time since working on lining up financing for the development, a process completed recently that paved the way for the sale.

Walker said Wytestone has been vacant for about a year after its anchor tenant, the Virginia Department of Social Services, relocated to Innsbrook. Demolition work began in recent weeks. 

Walker described the project as a “transformative opportunity for Richmond’s Central Business District.”

“We are both excited and proud to contribute to its realization,” Walker said. 

He said the majority of the development’s 302 apartments will be one-bedroom or studio units, with about 35 two-bedroom units. 

Some unique amenities are planned for the building’s rooftop, such as an indoor pickleball court and golf simulator room. Walker said Altitude on Main also will have a lounge and open-air roof deck.

Over 350 parking spots are also planned, spread between an existing below-grade deck at the tower, the surface lot and nearby five-story deck.

The building’s 8,500-square-foot ground-floor commercial space, once occupied in part by a Wells Fargo branch, will become retail space that’s being marketed by Thalhimer’s Reilly Marchant. Walker said he envisions a tenant that would be an amenity to residents and the area, like a “Wawa without the gas pumps” or multiple restaurants. 

P.G. Harris Construction Co. out of Chesapeake is the general contractor, and CPL, the new name for Commonwealth Architects after a recent acquisition, is the designer. Charlottesville-based Octagon Finance is the project lender. Walker said the project has secured both federal and state historic tax credits, with PNC Bank and Commonwealth Advisors Capital the advisers in those respective processes. 

Walker said the aim is to open the development to residents in the summer or fall of 2026. 

The sale of Wytestone closed March 14, according to city records. It sold for about $3 million less than its most recent city-assessed value of $29 million.

The post Downtown’s Wytestone Plaza office building trades for $26M ahead of apartment conversion appeared first on Richmond BizSense.