Granoff Associates has sold the Turks Head Building, the downtown Providence landmark, for $17,550,000 to a Pennsylvania-based grantee, named as 76 Westminster Street LLC in a Feb. 8 deed of sale.
Granoff principal Evan Granoff told Providence Business News last week that he’s owned the building at 76 Westminster Street since 1997. He refused further comment on the sale.
The investor that purchased the building last month is listed at the same Philadelphia address as FB Capital Partners, an investment group to which Granoff Associates last year sold the Union Trust Building. Granoff said he couldn’t comment on whether FB Capital Partners was involved with the purchase of the Turk’s Head Building.
During July 2007, FB Capital Partners purchased the 12-story, 62,000-square-foot Union Trust Building, located at 170 Westminster St. That $6.55 million sale was FB Capital’s first purchase in New England, the company said at the time. The company told Providence Business News that the building would be turned into an “iBuilding,” with free Wi-Fi access and other “intelligent building” features.
Since 2003, FB Capital Partners have invested more than $475 million in real estate, manufacturing, finance and business service concerns, according to the company’s Web site.
FB Capital Partners Managing Director Gary Brandeis said last week he couldn’t comment on whether his firm was involved with the purchase of the Turk’s Head Building.
The 95-year-old office tower’s name comes from the granite replica of a ship’s figurehead – a Turk – that’s mounted centrally on the third-floor façade.
When the current building was built in 1913, it kept the name. According to Brown University’s Dept. of Architectural Studies, the 16-story, granite-and-limestone building was designed for the Brown Land Co. by the architects Howells & Stokes, a New York firm also responsible for office buildings in New York City, Seattle and San Francisco. •
