The 12-story tower at 2201 Westwood Ave. is Carvana’s 30th car vending machine in the U.S. (BizSense file)
Three months after opening its “car vending machine” in Richmond, Carvana has unloaded the 12-story structure to an Arizona-based REIT in a multimillion-dollar deal.
The used car retailer sold the customer center and tower for $8.2 million in a deal that closed Feb. 8. The facility is at 2201 Westwood Ave., across Interstate 195 from TopGolf.
The buyer was an entity tied to Store Capital Corp., a publicly traded real estate investment trust based in Scottsdale, a few miles north of Carvana’s headquarters in Tempe.
The Richmond facility is one of several Carvana vending machines that have changed hands around the country in recent months, including towers in Cleveland and Philadelphia, according to news reports.
Store Capital was the seller of the Cleveland tower and has owned other Carvana properties, according to the REIT’s SEC filings.
The deal appears to be the first in the Richmond market for Store Capital, whose portfolio totaled 2,788 properties as of September, according to its website. A middle-market net-lease REIT, Store Capital trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “STOR.”
A company representative said Store Capital would not comment on the transaction. Carvana did not return a request for comment Tuesday.
Carvana’s Rob Christian in the customer center, which has brick walls and industrial-style hardwood floors.
The Richmond facility opened in November as the online auto seller’s 30th vending machine nationwide. At 12 stories, it’s also one of its tallest, able to hold up to 43 vehicles at a time. Car buyers can elect to retrieve their online purchases from the automated, window-paneled structure.
The $4 million facility was built last year by Colorado-based Catamount Constructors. WHN Architects, out of Charlotte, North Carolina, designed the building, and Kimley-Horn was the engineer.
Carvana purchased the 1.66-acre Westwood site in 2020 for $1.8 million. The city most recently assessed the improved property at $4.9 million.
The property is one of several along that stretch of Westwood to change hands in recent months.
In late December, local businessman and real estate developer Jay Nichols bought the next-door property at 2117 Westwood Ave. for $3.8 million. The property was previously home to Atlantic Electrical Supply Corp., which was recently bought by D.C.-based Encompass Supply.
On the other side of Westwood, catty-corner from Carvana at the Hamilton Street intersection, Henrico County recently purchased a 4.6-acre parcel at 2200 Westwood Ave., reportedly for a future sewage pump station. The county paid $3.4 million for the site, which it most recently assessed at $642,700.
Also nearby, local developer Spy Rock Real Estate Group has filed plans with the county for a five-story, 245-unit apartment building at 2001 Dabney Road.
The post Carvana vending machine tower in Richmond sold to REIT for $8M appeared first on Richmond BizSense.