NEW ORLEANS – Corporate Realty, Inc. has announced that K&B Plaza at 1055 St. Charles Avenue, a landmark office building of international architectural significance and the home of one of New Orleans’ most successful home-grown businesses is being marketed for sale for the first time in over fifty years.
Designed by the celebrated architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the former John Hancock Building in New Orleans, now known as K&B Plaza, exemplifies the International Style. The seven-story, 69,569 rentable square feet (rsf) property is constructed from concrete and features precast concrete frame that wraps the perimeter of the building on the upper levels, providing structural support to the column-less building. Three-foot deep cement louvers and thin horizontal sun breaks shade the windows, lending a three-dimensional sculptural quality to the building. It sits on a podium elevated approximately 8 feet above which conceals the building’s parking garage and provides space for a plaza, which is also a common feature of International Style architecture.
The award-winning property remains a cornerstone within SOM’s portfolio and is included among just 38 iconic buildings highlighted in Architecture of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1950–1962, the firm’s monograph on its mid-century era projects. The exterior and common interior spaces remain largely intact, consistent with SOM’s original design intent for enduring flexibility in tenant layouts. The building is considered a local modernist masterpiece.
“This is an extraordinary opportunity to acquire one of New Orleans’ most architecturally distinguished assets. K&B Plaza combines timeless design with a premier location on St Charles Avenue,” said Michael J. Siegel, SIOR, President of Corporate Realty.
The building was commissioned by John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company as its second office outside Boston and opened in 1962. In August 1973, the K&B drugstore chain, a beloved local pharmacy that grew to 188 stores across the Gulf South, acquired the building as its corporate office and renamed it K&B Plaza. While the drug store business was sold to Rite-Aid in 1997, the Besthoffs retained K&B Plaza as offices for their family business as well as a home for their sizable art collection. K&B Plaza has always operated as a multitenant office building with full and partial floor tenants. The quality of K&B Plaza, along with its high demand location, have ensured that the building continues to achieve high occupancy, and is currently 83% leased. Corporate Realty has represented leasing efforts of this building on behalf of ownership for the past 28 years.
The building’s design influenced the Besthoff purchase of the building and quickly became a place to showcase an art collection featuring outdoor sculpture. Many of the sculptures the Besthoffs acquired were displayed on the plaza until moving in 2003 to the newly created 12-acre Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Thereafter, the couple continued to purchase art for the Sculpture Garden as well as K&B Plaza. The Sculpture Garden notably expanded in 2019.
Included in the sale is an adjacent 44,000-sf parking lot with 142 spaces, which is currently used as a surface parking lot for the building tenants. There are also 65 underbuilding parking spaces. The site fronts three streets and is zoned CBD-3 Cultural Arts District which permits new development up to 10 stories with a height of 125’. While currently used for office spaces, there is the potential for hotel, multi-family, and/or mixed-use on the site. The K&B Plaza building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is therefore eligible for investment tax credits in a redevelopment scenario.
Strategically located at the uptown end of the New Orleans Central Business District and adjacent to the Pontchartrain Expressway, K&B Plaza offers unparalleled connectivity and visibility. Its stature, history, and adaptability make it uniquely positioned for a purchaser seeking a distinctive, legacy-quality property.
For more information or to schedule a tour, contact Mike at 504.581.5005 and msiegel@corp-realty.com; Bennett Davis, at bdavis@corp-realty.com; and Austin Lavin at alavin@corp-realty.com.
About Corporate Realty
Corporate Realty is a full-service commercial real estate agency based in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and LaPlace that serves the entire Gulf Region. The company has consistently been involved in the largest, most complex, and most demanding real estate transactions and management assignments in this region. Corporate Realty prides itself on having the most knowledgeable real estate professionals in the market. To find out more about the company and its services, visit corp-realty.com.