The Metropolitan, the Midtown Charlotte shopping and office complex anchored by Trader Joe's, Best Buy, Marshalls and Burlington, went under contract with a new buyer Tuesday, though no purchase price has been publicly disclosed. The property sits at 1111, 1100, 1133 and 1055 Metropolitan Ave., near the Eastover, Elizabeth, Myers Park and Dilworth neighborhoods, and has been listed for sale since June.
Northwood's Six-Year Hold Comes to an End
Current owner Northwood Investors, a Colorado-based real estate private equity firm, acquired the Metropolitan roughly six years ago in 2020, according to the Charlotte Observer. Property records cited by the paper show Northwood paid $90 million for the complex, a figure that differs slightly from the $92.3 million price reported at the time by WSOC-TV, which also detailed that the 2020 deal included 170,589 square feet of Class A office space, 171,644 square feet of retail space, a 1,110-space parking deck and an adjacent 1.3-acre land parcel purchased from J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Northwood Investors officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday, the Observer reported.
J.P. Morgan itself had bought the Metropolitan back in February 2013 for $94.5 million from the original joint-venture developers, Pappas Properties, Collet & Associates and Colonial Properties Trust, according to WCNC. Northwood has since put the complex through renovations from 2021 to 2025, and the property is now more than 80% occupied, per the Observer's report.
Marketing Pitch Leaned on Midtown Dominance
CBRE, which handled the listing, described the center in sales materials as having no realistic path for competitive big-box supply to emerge in the trade area, according to the Observer. The advertisement pitched the property as an opportunity to cement long-term dominance in Midtown, the paper reported, noting the Metropolitan is considered the only large-format, multi-anchor center within a 10-mile radius. CBRE officials did not immediately respond to the Observer's requests for comment Wednesday.
Target is listed as a shadow tenant at the site and is described as driving customer traffic to the center, though the retailer itself is not included in the sale, the Observer reported. Beyond its national anchors, the complex also includes restaurants and local businesses, among them Lost Worlds Brewing. The property was removed from CBRE's public sale listing following the news that it had gone under contract.
A Site With Deep Charlotte Retail Roots
The Metropolitan's current buildings date to 2008, but the site's retail history stretches back much further. It originally housed Charlottetown Mall, which opened on October 28, 1959, as the first enclosed shopping mall in the Southeast before being demolished between 2005 and 2006 to make way for mixed-use redevelopment, according to Business Insider. That $240 million transformation relied on $33.9 million in public-private funding, including $8.9 million in infrastructure improvements, $8 million in greenway land acquisition and $17 million in property tax rebates, according to research from SB Friedman Development Advisors. Trader Joe's opened its 1133 Metropolitan Ave. store during that initial redevelopment wave in 2008, and the location has long served as a primary urban grocery option for surrounding central Charlotte neighborhoods, as Hoodline noted in its own past coverage of top Charlotte grocery destinations.
The complex also directly borders the Little Sugar Creek Greenway, a 19-mile paved trail system managed by Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation that connects Midtown Charlotte to Freedom Park and the South Carolina state line, according to Wikipedia's entry on the trail.
Part of a Broader Charlotte Portfolio
Northwood Investors built a much larger footprint in the Charlotte market in March 2017, when it acquired the 535-acre Ballantyne Corporate Park for $1.2 billion, the largest real estate transaction in Charlotte's history at the time, according to industry publication PERE. The firm has since been behind the $1.5 billion revamp of the Ballantyne at the Bowl in South Charlotte. Just next door to the Metropolitan, affiliate developer Northwood Ravin is also building 1200 Metropolitan, a 27-story residential tower at Metropolitan Avenue and South Kings Drive targeted for delivery in 2027, a project Hoodline covered when it examined how the tower snarled nearby streets for Cherry neighbors.
Echoes of Queen City Quarter's Ownership Churn
The Metropolitan's sale process arrives as another center-city Charlotte retail property navigates its own ownership shake-up. Queen City Quarter, the Uptown Charlotte complex formerly known as EpiCentre, was listed for sale in April 2026 and reported under contract by WCNC, according to the Observer's account, though the property is not actually under contract at this time. Queen City Quarter, which spans 302,324 square feet, experienced a foreclosure in 2022 and has faced high vacancy rates and financial troubles since, despite renovation improvements and a rebrand as a family destination that Hoodline detailed in its earlier report on the listing.
No terms of the Metropolitan deal, including the identity of the buyer or the sale price, have been made public. The Observer's report, authored by Catherine Muccigrosso, indicates the transaction remains under contract as of this week, with both Northwood Investors and CBRE yet to comment publicly on the pending sale.
