Foreign Capital Drives Austin’s CRE Momentum
When marketing the Robinson-Rosner Building, CBRE was not surprised to receive interest and offers from both national and international investors for a rare opportunity to purchase a historic building.
AUSTIN, TX—Austin continues to be on the radar of international and domestic buyers. The region is attracting this interest due to its range of both new and old historically significant buildings.
The Robinson-Rosner Building, a historic retail and office building located at 504 Congress in the central business district, did just that when attracting a new owner, an undisclosed buyer. The private family estate seller donated all proceeds from the sale to the University of Texas.
CBRE’s Logan Reichle and Bradley Bailey represented the seller.
“Austin’s CBD continues to be the number one desired location in the market for both domestic and foreign capital. When marketing 504 Congress we were not surprised to receive a lot of interest and offers from both national and international investors, as this building provided an extremely rare opportunity to purchase a historic building on the prominent Congress Avenue corridor,” says Reichle.
Built in 1854, the Robinson-Rosner Building is Congress Avenue’s oldest standing building. This building was originally a bakery and dry goods store. To this day, Robinson-Rosner is engraved on the facade of Gothic Revival architectural features.
The approximately 8,174-square-foot building consists of three floors and is currently 100% leased to two tenants, Csilla Somogyi (retail) and SaaS Consulting (office), GlobeSt.com learns.
“The Robinson-Rosner building is significant for a variety of reasons,” Reichle tells GlobeSt.com. “This is a recorded Texas Historic Landmark located on Congress Avenue, within blocks of the Capitol. In addition to its historic prominence, it also provides wonderful foot traffic and a centrally accessed location within steps of countless amenities for tenants. As such, the new buyer inherited a full tenant roster.”
The Robinson-Rosner building was built out of limestone and brick, which is notable for the Gothic Revival features used in the architecture, GlobeSt.com learns. Its limestone storefront was updated in the 1880s (in brick) and again in 1984, retaining the 1880s cast iron columns. Those original iron columns also have been restored in recent years.