Riverside Lands $350M for 43-Story Charlotte Tower

Chicago-based Riverside Investment & Development lined up debt and equity to push forward a major office project in Charlotte’s South End, locking in $245 million of construction financing for a 43-story tower at 1111 South Tryon Street.

Affiliates of New York-based Apollo provided the construction loan for the second phase of Riverside’s Queensbridge Collective project, according to Commercial Observer, which first reported the financing. The tower will combine about 356,,000 square feet of rentable office space above 346 apartments, next to another multifamily tower at 111 East Carson Boulevard.

Riverside paired the debt with $105 million of structured equity from a joint venture involving RXR, One Investment Management and Liberty Mutual Investments, bringing the total capital committed for the phase to $350 million.

The financing comes with meaningful preleasing in hand. In September, Riverside announced that Charlotte-based law firm Moore & Van Allen signed a 15-year lease for 206,000 square feet, more than half of the future office building, the Charlotte Business Journal reported. Insurance giant Pacific Life has also committed to 68,000 square feet, giving the project early momentum at a time when new office starts remain scarce nationwide.

The office tower is part of a larger, multi-tower redevelopment that Riverside has been assembling for years. The firm closed on the 1111 South Tryon site in 2021, which spans multiple parcels and was previously the site of Midnight Diner and Uptown Cabaret. At the time, Riverside said construction on a mixed-use project featuring office, residential, retail and potentially a hotel would begin within a year.

Altogether, the two-tower Queensbridge Collective is expected to carry total construction costs of up to $750 million, making it one of the more ambitious mixed-use projects in Charlotte’s South End corridor. South End, anchored by the LYNX Blue Line light rail and a steady influx of apartments and retail, has emerged as an active submarket in the city for mixed-use development.

Nearby, Charlotte-based Panorama is adding to the momentum. The firm broke ground last year on The J, an 84-unit residential project at 1718 South Tryon Street, with vertical construction now underway.

— Eric Weilbacher