The 103-year-old Metcalf Building at the corner of Orange Avenue and Pine Street in downtown Orlando has new owners, and they are not interested in nightlife. First Capital Property Group has acquired the 10-story landmark and is converting it into modern office suites aimed at small and mid-sized businesses, a shift that comes just months after the building's basement lost its longtime bar tenant.
New Owners, New Direction for a Downtown Fixture
According to WKMG ClickOrlando, First Capital Property Group plans to turn the Metcalf Building into office suites designed for companies that need anywhere from a single floor down to a smaller footprint, since each floor offers more than 3,500 square feet within the building's total of over 38,000 square feet. The building already has several tenants in place and remains fully operational even as the new ownership group works to bring in additional businesses, the outlet reports. Jere Matheny, First Capital Property Group's vice president of brokerage services, said the redevelopment will show that Orlando is open for business, calling it a first step toward the rehabilitation, redevelopment, and adaptive reuse of existing buildings downtown, per the same report.
Matheny added that the project could help spark more redevelopment in the area and said he expects the effort to have a positive impact on downtown Orlando, according to WKMG ClickOrlando's report. The building's pitch to prospective tenants leans heavily on its past: a 1923 Chicago-style tower that combines historic character with modern office space, built by contractor A.G. Bentley as one of Orlando's original three 10-story skyscrapers alongside the Angebilt Hotel, according to City District Orlando.
From Bank Failure to Disney's First Orlando Office
The tower originally opened as the State Bank of Orlando Building before real estate investor Henry W. Metcalf bought it for $125,000 in 1930 after Orlando Bank & Trust Company collapsed during the Great Depression, per the Historical Marker Database. During the 1960s, Walt Disney and his company occupied space in the building while quietly acquiring land for what would become Walt Disney World, WKMG ClickOrlando notes. The Metcalf Building later hosted the Orlando/Kissimmee Host Committee for the 1994 FIFA World Cup, which brought five tournament matches and an estimated $82 million in economic impact to the region, according to TotalCommercial.
Before First Capital Property Group's arrival, the building changed hands in October 2021 when Quincy, Massachusetts-based FoxRock bought it for $9.79 million from Metcalf Building LLC, which had owned the property for 18 years after purchasing it in 2003 for $3.8 million, according to Franklin Street. By the second quarter of 2026, the building had already completed more than $1.5 million in capital improvements, including full elevator modernization, a new TPO roof, upgraded HVAC units, and the first direct elevator access to the basement level in the building's history, per Orlando Shine.
Tanqueray's Exit Leaves a Basement Space to Fill
Those basement upgrades take on added significance given what left the space. Tanqueray's, the dive bar that had operated in the Metcalf Building's basement for 37 years, closed on New Year's Eve, a shutdown Hoodline covered in our coverage of the closure. Orlando Shine's report on the space notes that real estate representatives flagged a regulatory wrinkle facing the landlord: City of Orlando policy requires closed venues in the Downtown Entertainment Area to reopen within six months to retain grandfathered alcohol zoning permits, meaning the clock is running on finding a suitable new tenant for that basement footprint.
Whether a bar returns is not yet the plan. Listings reviewed by LoopNet indicate a Caribbean-themed restaurant and lounge concept called Tropix is scheduled to open on the ground floor later this year, taking over the former bank branch space at the corner of Orange Avenue and Pine Street that had previously housed Citrus Bank and, earlier still, Orlando Bank & Trust.
A City Squeezing Out Late-Night Venues
The Metcalf Building's pivot toward office and daytime use fits a broader pattern downtown. Orlando updated its After-Midnight Alcohol Sales permit enforcement in February 2026 to require venues to pay lump-sum monthly policing fees in advance, ranging from $2,894 to more than $8,681 per month, fees Hoodline detailed in our report on the new policing bills. Tanqueray's closure was part of a wider contraction in the district, where venues including HighT, 1UP, Chillers, Cahoots, High Tide, and Ember all closed between late 2024 and 2025, according to Central Florida Lifestyle, with operators citing rising municipal fees and thinner late-night foot traffic.
The city has also moved to limit nightclub density directly. In August 2024, the Orlando City Council adopted an ordinance requiring a minimum 300-foot separation between nightclubs in the Downtown Entertainment Area, a rule that caps venue concentration at roughly one per city block, according to WKMG. Against that backdrop, First Capital Property Group's bet on office suites and a daytime-friendly restaurant concept looks less like a one-off and more like an alignment with where city policy has been pushing downtown property owners for the past two years.
