Tomorrow (Thursday, July 17th) is the deadline the owners have set for all bids on this property.

I have heard from good sources there may be as many as five separate bids. Remember, however, the owners have not set a price and it's not clear if they will accept any of the offers. There is legitimate concern that the owners are not realistic about the true value of the complex.

Any potential buyer is having to do their own due diligence as the the owners have not been providing much assistance. At this point, it seems there is great concern about including a hotel use due to the expense and the looming and likely development of a huge Convention Center hotel. Those factors along with a ton more rooms in the pipeline (another large hotel is likely to be part of the expanded Stage Center development) means that redevelopment is more likely to focus on residential, office and some retail on the ground level. It is likely all proposals will include razing part of the non-historic eastern sections to make room for essential structured parking, as even with this complex 75% empty, downtown parking garages are operating at more than 100% capacity.

One name that has emerged as a very strong potential buyer and re-developer is Alterra out of Philadelphia. Most of their work has been in Pennsylvania but they are very experienced taking historic Class B office buildings and converting to Class A apartments.

They have deep pockets and this seems to be right up their alley. And remember, the current owners had previously only focused on California and a few other markets before they bought this project. FNC obviously has strong appeal to out-of-state suitors, and that point was reinforced by the listing broker just a few weeks ago.

Here is some of Alterra's work:

Alterra Properties » Properties

The Arch is very similar to FNC; here are some photos: