Selling 14 West building proving to be quite difficult

Attempts to sell a historic brick building long used as a restaurant and hotel suites next to Circle Centre mall are proving extremely difficult. Dating back to 1875, the distinctive four-story building went on the market in January with an asking price in the neighborhood of $4 million. With no serious offers, broker Janice Paine of Colliers International attempted to generate additional interest through a “call for offers” that ended March 29. The solicitation yielded a handful of bids that so far don’t look promising. “We’re going to respond to a couple of these offers,” she said, “but we’re pretty far apart.”

The building was home to 14 West Restaurant and Suites until the end of 2012, when the operation shut down. The restaurant was previously known as Malibu on Maryland. The business had been a passion project of local businessman and philanthropist Carter M. Fortune, who died at age 70 in August. Fortune was chairman of locally based Fortune Industries, a publicly traded company that is undergoing a complicated restructuring. The building, now held by a Fortune family trust, totals 20,000 square feet and contains five hotel suites on the top two floors. The owner is considering selling the suites individually as condos if the entire building fails to sell. “The building is just very unique,” Paine said. “It’s going to take the right buyer to fall in love with it.”