[DCMetroRaleigh]

Originally Posted by Matthew

This is just a guess from me: The Loewy Building "may" get purchased by Cleveland's GBX Group and GBX Group's director of acquisitions, who is from S.C., and has worked on several projects in downtown Winston-Salem over the years? They usually like buildings like this. This is actually not a bad project for Mayfair, since the exterior was recently cleaned and restored. I'm also guessing the historic resources department would object to removing Raymond Loewy's renovations, so nothing is really required of the exterior. That is done. This is mostly an interior renovation to a new use. I'm just daydreaming of someone restoring the exterior to its original appearance, which likely won't happen since Raymond Loewy was the "father of Streamline Design" and is famous.

As for ProKidney, Mark Owens knew and was assisting their search for a space in Winston-Salem, but Winston-Salem is more of a research lab city and the airport area, in neighboring Guilford County, is more of a manufacturing area. The airport area was the closest location to Winston-Salem that worked for them. Most of total value you see is specialized equipment. I think this shows why A&T, HPU, and UNCG should take part in downtown Winston-Salem's IQ District. I've spoken on this before, over the years. Winston-Salem is perfect for the research and the surrounding counties, with flatter land, are better for the manufacturing, which usually has more jobs and this expensive equipment they can tax.

There is a life science manufacturing campus proposal, near the CDI, but it is a later phase of downtown Winston-Salem's IQ District. They likely won't start on it for a few more years? The focus is still on labs, offices, university classrooms, and startup spaces for the life science industry. Again, Winston-Salem is prepared for the science side of the life science industry, but not the manufacturing side.

I don’t trust Mayfair with anything. They might mean well, but the execution is disappointing.