NC Mutual Life Insurance to stay in namesake building, a fixture in Durham’s history
The NC Mutual Life tower, a monument to Durham’s African American history, once stood as the city’s tallest building. It has symbolized the economic success and self-determination of the city’s Black residents as the state’s first Black-owned life insurance company.
But in recent years, NC Mutual Life Insurance Co. has struggled. Its presence shrunk to the building’s third floor. Financial loss almost forced the company to leave the building on West Chapel Hill Street altogether.
A new lease agreement with Turnbridge Equities, who has owned the building since October, will ensure NC Mutual Life stays in the historic building, said Jason Davis, Turnbridge’s managing director.
“We’re thrilled to not only preserve the building’s integrity but also provide NC Mutual with a continued presence in its headquarters building,” Davis said. “We are honored to celebrate and support Durham’s economic resiliency by bringing fresh capital to the city, and to this storied property in particular.”
The 14-story office building, called The Tower at Mutual Plaza, is seeking new leasing. Turnbridge said it will make multi-million dollar investments over the long term to revitalize the building and maintain its long-term prominence in Durham commercial real estate.
The insurance company, founded over a century ago and headquartered at the building since the 1960s, was once considered one of the largest African-American businesses in the nation, The News & Observer previously reported.
It lost over $34 million in assets in recent years after a New York investor defrauded the company. He was arrested and federally charged with wire fraud and perjury last year, The N&O reported.
The N.C. Department of Insurance took over the company in 2019 for financial rehabilitation and planned to end its lease in the historic tower until the new lease agreement was arranged.
“We have learned a great deal about NC Mutual’s importance to Durham through our community engagement process, and we will continue to engage with local stakeholders, given the importance of this building to the city of Durham and its history,” Davis said.
Turnbridge Equities paid $37.2 million for the building last October a foreclosure auction after its previous owners defaulted on its loan balance to pay for the building.
Its tenants include Duke University, Duke Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The global architecture firm, Perkins&Will, which helped design the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., moved into the building a few years ago.
New leasing in the building offers office spaces for $30.50 per square foot, according to online listings.
The tower is Turnbridge’s third acquisition in the Triangle. The company first bought Cary Towne Center with plans to entirely redevelop it, but Epic Games bought the property to build its new headquarters on the site.
Turnbridge plans to redevelop the historic Creamery building on Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh into a high-rise, which it purchased last year.
