Wells Fargo Name Taken Off Iconic Jacksonville Tower

Wells Fargo’s name has been removed from an iconic 37-story office tower in downtown Jacksonville.

The bank relinquished its signage rights after announcing plans to reduce its footprint in the nearly 900K SF tower from 100K SF across seven floors to an expected two floors. The 49-year-old tower has been known as the Wells Fargo Center since 2011.

The giant letters spelling the name of the bank were lifted one by one from the building by a vintage 1958 Sikorsky S-58 helicopter and flown down the St. John’s River to a pier in the city’s Shipyards area to be trucked away, the Florida Times-Union reported this week.

An entity managed by NYC-based Argentic Investment Management acquired the tower, located in Jacksonville’s Northbank waterfront section, and an adjacent parking facility in April for $46M in a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure transaction.

The new owners, who now are marketing the building as 1 Independent Square, have indicated there may be a new name on the building soon, which would be its fifth iteration since the tower was built for Independent Life in 1975.

The tower last traded for $75M in 2014, when it was purchased by a partnership of NY-based Allegiance Capital Partners and Banyan Street Capital of Miami.

“As part of our multiyear initiative to build a stronger, more efficient Wells Fargo, we regularly assess our real estate portfolio in an effort to ensure that we are best meeting the needs of our employees and customers, responding to consumer and economic trends, and responsibly managing costs,” a Wells Fargo spokesperson said in a statement on the Jacksonville downsizing.

Earlier this year, as losses mounted from its exposure to loans backed by office properties that have seen their values drop, Wells Fargo cut expenses by reducing the bank’s CRE footprint.

In January, Wells Fargo announced that it would abandon its iconic namesake tower in Raleigh, NC and relocate the workers to other locations across the region. The 29-story Wells Fargo Capitol Center dominates the skyline over Fayetteville Street.

Wells Fargo said vacating the 33-year-old tower would not involve any job reductions. “We are committed to our Raleigh-based employees and will continue to have a major employee presence here, but we have more real estate than we need to support these employees,” the company said, in a statement.

The move in Raleigh coincided with Wells Fargo’s disclosure that the total of non-accrual loans in its portfolio backed by office buildings increased to $3.4B at the end of December, up from $2.8B in Q3 and $189M at the end of 2022.

A loan is classified as non-accrual when a payment hasn’t been received in at least 90 days. The term refers to loans that have stopped accruing interest, meaning the lender is not earning any revenue from them. After 90 days, these loans are considered non-performing.

While Wells Fargo is selectively reducing its office footprint, its new $455M office campus under construction in Irving, Texas is nearing completion. Scheduled to come online by the end of next year, the property will encompass 850K SF across two buildings.