Editor’s note: A previous version of this story reported the building sold in an online auction, but the auctioneer said on Wednesday that the top bid was not high enough to sell.
Despite a last minute flurry of bids, a four-story office building near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor failed to sell in an online auction on Tuesday.
The 25,000-square-foot building at 111 Water Street received a top bid of $1.2 million and a 5 percent buyer’s premium brought the total price to $1.26 million. When the auction ended on Tuesday, the website of the auctioneer, Alex Cooper, posted the word “SOLD” in capital letters on the screen.
But on Wednesday, auctioneer Paul Cooper said in an email message that the building was not sold. “The property did not bring a high enough price to sell,” he said.
The Water Street building stands two blocks from the Inner Harbor shoreline and is zoned for commercial use, with 47 feet of frontage along E. Lombard Street and 49 feet of frontage on Water Street. It contains a vacant restaurant space on the first level, previously occupied by Saturday Morning Café, and office space above, with floorplates of about 6,400 square feet. Much of the space was renovated within the last 10 years.
Bidding started on June 20 at 11 a.m. and ended June 25 at 11 a.m. Most of the bidding occurred on the final day, going from $500,000 to $1.2 million in the last several hours. Some commenters on social media said they thought the hammer price of $1.2 million was too good to be true for a renovated building of that size so close to the Inner Harbor, and they turned out to be right.
