A hotel developer has purchased the Bridgestone/Firestone tire center at 63 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., a prime piece of real estate that sits at the visual head of Broughton Street.
Bridgestone Retail Operations spokeswoman Susan Steeno confirmed the sale Monday and said it’s currently under contract with an investor for hotel use. Steeno did not disclose the name of the buyer or a sale price.
With strong hotel occupancy rates and a resurgent tourism sector, developers are buying up properties along the perimeter of the Landmark District and planting hotels at a clip. This would make the third new hotel slated for that end of MLK since 2013.
The one-story brick structure currently on the property was built in 1965 and sits on an area of almost 17,000 square feet, according to Chatham County property records. Bridgestone/Firestone Retail & Commercial Operations LLC paid $740,310 for the land in 2001.
Ellen Harris, director of historic preservation and urban planning at the Metropolitan Planning Commission, said it’s an unusual property in that it serves as the visual end of Broughton Street, much in the way Bull Street ends at City Hall.
“It’s a very unique property,” said Harris. “There are very few view sheds that dead-end like that into a building.”
No architectural plans have come to the planning commission yet, but the property sits in a five-story height zone and would need a demolition permit from the Historic District Board of Review to tear down the current building. The building is classified as non-contributing on the city’s building map, according to Harris.
Meanwhile, the Bridgestone/Firestone outlet will close permanently Dec. 2, and employees will be relocated to other Bridgestone centers.