Kingsport Retail for Sale - Downtown Kingsport
Originally constructed in 1927 as the First National Bank of Kingsport, this iconic 26,100± SF historic landmark offers three stories plus a historic cellar and an expansive rooftop deck, creating one of the most distinctive redevelopment opportunities in Downtown Kingsport.
Few downtown redevelopment opportunities offer the ability to create an entire destination rather than simply renovating a single building.
Boutique Hotel & Hospitality Destination.
Can Combine with 244-252 Broad St for Boutique Hotel or Loft Concepts Requiring 50,000 Square Feet: https://go.passive.investments/244BroadSt
Combined (~51,100 SF) — 85–100 keys, which crosses into upper-midscale flag territory and gives you the scale to support the rooftop and cellar concepts.
The property's historic architecture naturally lends itself to a boutique hotel or lifestyle hospitality concept featuring luxury guest rooms, rooftop dining, a cellar cocktail lounge, event facilities, and vibrant street-level food and beverage offerings. Features one passenger elevator and front & rear stairwells, with the potential to expand from three to six stories.
The opportunity becomes even more compelling when combined with neighboring buildings under common ownership. Together, the properties provide the scale necessary to develop a true walkable hospitality district featuring boutique accommodations, multiple restaurant concepts, entertainment venues, rooftop experiences, retail, and public gathering spaces —creating a destination unlike anything else in the Tri-Cities region.
Urban Loft Redevelopment
Upper floors can be transformed into approximately 15–17+ luxury urban loft residences, capitalizing on growing demand for downtown living. Historic architectural details, exposed brick, oversized windows, and high ceilings create the authentic character today's residents seek.
Mixed-Use Development
Developers can combine street-level retail or restaurants with residential, office, hotel, or entertainment uses above, creating multiple revenue streams while contributing to Downtown Kingsport's continued revitalization.
Office & Creative Workspace
The flexible floor plans support executive offices, law firms, financial institutions, technology companies, creative agencies, medical professionals, or collaborative co-working environments. The event center and rooftop provide premium amenities rarely found in downtown office properties.
Hospitality & Entertainment
The building naturally supports: Destination restaurant, brewery or distillery, rooftop restaurant, cocktail lounge, speakeasy, private club, entertainment venue, wine bar, tasting room, and event venue
Featuring an elegant marble and limestone facade, exposed brick interiors, soaring ceilings, original architectural details, an intact bank vault, passenger elevator, and prime Opportunity Zone location, the property presents exceptional potential for adaptive reuse as mixed-use, hospitality, residential, office, entertainment, or retail.
What truly sets this offering apart is the opportunity to combine the property with neighboring downtown buildings under common ownership, allowing developers to create an entire walkable hospitality district. Rather than redeveloping a single building, investors have the rare opportunity to assemble multiple historic structures into a cohesive destination featuring boutique lodging, urban lofts, restaurants, entertainment venues, rooftop experiences, retail, and other complementary hospitality uses in the heart of Downtown Kingsport.
Construction Cost & Grant (DIG) Program
The same construction-cost advantage shown for multifamily holds true for retail and remodel work. Kingsport hard costs run meaningfully below peer markets across the board, and when paired with incentives — Opportunity Zone tax advantages, façade improvement grants and the City's Redevelopment Grant and Downtown Loan programs — projects achieve a superior basis and stronger risk-adjusted returns.
Whether the buyer is repositioning the existing asset as a Hotel, Loft, F&B, or retail space or doing a full top-to-bottom remodel, the cost to build is substantially more affordable than what the same project would carry in Chattanooga, Knoxville, Nashville, or Asheville
Kingsport's steady, measured growth is its quiet advantage. Fast-growing markets like Nashville often overbuild during boom cycles and pay for it in vacancy spikes. Kingsport doesn't carry that risk. Commercial fundamentals here are unusually tight across every sector — Office at 4.0% vacancy, Retail at 1.5%, and Multifamily at 5.6%, all outperforming national averages.
What makes this property a rare opportunity is the location: the historic core of downtown, where the inventory is finite and effectively irreplaceable. You can't build more historic buildings, and the city isn't adding new ones to the downtown center anytime soon.
Kingsport buying power per dollar of retail rent is 10% to 24% higher than Knoxville, Nashville, and Asheville, NC.
This metric is critical: rent is ultimately funded by tenant revenue, which is directly tied to the purchasing power of the surrounding population. In Kingsport, that relationship is more favorable.
Situated along Broad Street, the property enjoys exceptional visibility and walk-ability just steps from City Hall, restaurants, retail, entertainment, downtown employers, public parking, and ongoing public and private investment throughout Downtown Kingsport.
Assemblage & District-Scale Redevelopment
One of the property's greatest strengths is its ability to be assembled with adjacent buildings, creating an entire redevelopment district instead of an isolated project. For experienced developers and institutional investors, this provides an increasingly rare opportunity to control multiple historic downtown buildings and deliver a coordinated vision that may include:
Whether envisioned as a landmark mixed-use redevelopment, boutique hotel, luxury urban loft conversion, or the centerpiece of a larger assembled hospitality district, 255 Broad Street offers the architectural character, development flexibility, zoning, and location to become one of Northeast Tennessee's most significant adaptive reuse projects.
This is more than a historic building—it is an opportunity to shape the future of Downtown Kingsport.
Buyer to verify all zoning, square footage, Opportunity Zone benefits, incentives, permitted uses, measurements, and redevelopment approvals with the City of Kingsport. Information believed reliable but not guaranteed.
