One South Commercial plants flag in Devil’s Triangle building

From left: Tom Rosman, Dave McCormack and the One South Commercial crew in front of the Park Place building where the brokerage is now based. (Jonathan Spiers photos)

Six months after breaking off from a local real estate group, a homegrown commercial brokerage has found a place to plant its flag by way of a building it purchased with one of its clients.

One South Commercial has set up shop in the Park Place building at 2800 Patterson Ave., which principal Tom Rosman and a group of its agents bought with Dave McCormack of Waukeshaw Development, a frequent client of the brokerage.

The wedge-shaped building at Patterson and Park avenues’ convergence with Arthur Ashe Boulevard, in Richmond’s colloquially named Devil’s Triangle area, sold to the group last week for $2.6 million, Rosman said. The sale was not yet reflected in online property records Friday.

The seller was an LLC tied to development firm Rebkee Co., which had been based in the building after buying it in 2017 for $2.35 million. The three-story building on a quarter-acre lot is assessed by the city at $2.8 million.

Rosman said he’d approached Rebkee principal Rob Hargett about leasing space in the building after the brokerage broke off from One South Realty Group, the business Rosman co-founded with Rick and Sarah Jarvis that joined up with Samson Properties late last year.

Tom Rosman

Rosman said Hargett told him the building was fully leased-up, then called back a week later with a proposal.

“He said, ‘Hey, we might want to sell this thing,’ and I said we’d be interested. We got a deal and got our feasibility going and here we are,” Rosman said.

Most of the brokerage’s 10 agents went in on the purchase with Rosman and McCormack, who Rosman said was in need of a building to buy to complete a 1031 exchange, through which investors can defer payments of capital gains taxes from one investment property to another.

McCormack, who had recently worked with One South to sell a site near Forest Hill that’s now planned for apartments, said he was happy to go in on the building with the brokerage.

“One South had helped us sell 700 W. 44th St., and then Tom approached me about being involved here and participating in this, which was super exciting for us,” McCormack said.

“We have a great relationship, and we love this area so much. I’ve lived here my whole adult life, going to VCU and passing by this building a thousand times, so it’s a really cool thing to be able to own and to be able to work with One South on it,” he said.

The century-old building was once used as a funeral home and now houses offices.

Built in 1922, the 16,500-square-foot building was once the L.T. Christian Funeral Home before its current use as office space. One South will fill the building’s second floor, roughly 4,100 square feet, while the first and third floors are filled by existing tenants InVirtus Wealth Partners, Virginia Housing Alliance and Sarah B. Warner Law.

One South’s space includes a glass-walled conference room, offices and other spaces that Rosman said Rebkee built out ahead of the sale.

He said Hargett plans to work from home and continue Rebkee with co-founder Kevin McFadden. Hargett could not be reached Friday.

Dan Hargett, Rob’s brother and previously a principal at Rebkee, recently launched a new firm, Roka Partners, which is based in the circular office building at Floyd Avenue and Thompson Street near Carytown. An LLC tied to Dan Hargett purchased that building in April for $1.2 million.

One South’s 4,100-square-foot space fills the building’s second floor.

With its home base established, One South Commercial is looking ahead with a new logo and website and a goal to grow its roster by about five more agents over the next couple years. It recently picked up Chris Corrada, previously with Bill Goodwin’s Riverstone Properties, who joined One South last month as an associate broker while also launching his own real estate consultancy.

The brokerage’s new logo.

On top of their own ownership stakes in the building, the agents who went in on it also gifted a stake in the building to Liz McSorley, One South’s administrative manager and transaction coordinator. Rosman said having agents go in on the purchase with him is good for the business.

“I think it’s a great way to entice them to feel like it’s their company, not just mine, that everybody’s involved and they have ownership,” he said.

Having formed the team as an in-house division of One South Realty Group, which he started with the Jarvises in 2008, Rosman said he’s looking forward to growing One South Commercial in both volume and agent count.

Focused on Richmond but with listings across the state, the brokerage targets deals between $2 million and $6 million and does about $150 million in volume annually, Rosman said. Recent local deals at or above the $2 million mark include a warehouse and land at 1301 Dineen St., McCormack’s office building purchase at 4901 Fitzhugh Ave., and his 700 W. 44th sale to apartments developer The Lawson Cos.

On deciding to continue One South Commercial as its own brokerage, Rosman said: “We definitely wanted to keep going, and we wanted to keep our model: small, local, boutique firm.”

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