Former Citi building sold for $6M, renovations planned
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — The massive former Citi building in Gray — once the topic of discussions about conversion to a new school — has a new owner and is set to house the region’s largest CPA firm.
Property records show RBM Properties of Gray and Mark Larkey paid Citigroup Technology $6 million for the nearly 128,000 square feet of floor space that once housed around 2,000 Citi employees. The property, sold Jan. 29, covers 9.8 acres. It was originally listed for $10 million last year and that asking price had been lowered to $8 million when News Channel 11 reported last June on the discussions about using it for a school.
John Speropulos is marketing the property for lease and said regional accounting firm Blackburn, Childers & Steagall (BCS) has purchased about 55,000 square feet of the space, leaving roughly 75,000 for lease. Despite the large amount of available space, Speropulos sounded bullish on the prospects Thursday.
“There’s a lot of activity right now in the commercial market in all asset types,” he said, referring to the main sectors of office, warehouse/industrial and retail/restaurant.
He said that includes office demand and added “there’s not a lot of product out there for people.”
Many local Citi employees now work from home and the company’s call center is now in a smaller building in Boones Creek.
A Johnson City building permit issued Feb. 12 for interior demolition calls for $265,000 of work to be performed by Burleson Construction, and it’s described as for “BCS Office.”
BCS’s Andy Hatfield told News Channel 11in November 2023 the firm was considering putting all its paid staff under one roof. It was BCS that sought and got a rezoning approval for the property from light industrial to “planned community business” in November.
A BCS representative said Thursday the firm expects to be able to provide more details about plans for its portion of the building within the next few weeks.
Speropulos said he doesn’t expect BCS to be alone among companies in considering once-sleepy Gray as a location.
“It’s a great opportunity for other users within the region who want to be more centrally located to stake a presence in Gray and be more easily accessible to their client base in this market,” he said.
The building, which Speropulos said Citi took very good care of, isn’t necessarily limited to office uses.
In late January the director of the Washington County Public Library’s Gray branch told News Channel 11 the library had outgrown its current space and that board members were eyeing the Citi building as a possible new location.
Speropulos said the new owners, who have their own business headquartered just a stones throw away, considered the building “a really nice asset for our community and wanted to see it continue to be something nice.”
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