Wilmington, North Carolina

The towers that set the tone of the core, and who holds them. A price is the price a document states, on the date it states — not an estimate of what the building is worth now.

The most valuable ground in the city, and what the public record says about it.

At this scale the significant owner is rarely a trust or a fund: it is one or two local holding companies, a family in its second or third generation, and often the land around the town rather than the buildings in it.

Public bodies hold Wilmington's biggest blocks. The State of North Carolina's UNCW campus is the single most valuable parcel, and the City is the largest landholder by area (264 parcels, 938 acres). The Ports Authority, the school board and the County follow. Two hospital entities under Novant Health hold over $1B of buildings, and the Cape Fear Community College campus downtown is worth $271M. The largest private group by area is a set of companies whose names begin 'Cameron', with 43 parcels and 289 acres. Figures are parcels in the owner's name on the county roll with municipality code WM or BD, Nov 2026 (ownership year 2027, appraisal 2026). Acreage is the roll's stated acreage.

New-home building in this market: the volume, and the firms behind it. Ownership of a builder matters as much as its volume — a private-equity platform and a family firm behave differently.

New houses inside the city limits go up on infill lots and on the remaining large tracts, among them the River Road subdivisions (Folklore, Longhill, Moonshell, Keepers streets). No published league table covers Wilmington. These figures are the parcels each builder entity holds on the county roll in Nov 2026: a snapshot of lots and unsold homes, not annual starts. A Wilmington-mailed private builder holding 38 parcels is left out because its company name is a person's full name. NNP IV Cape Fear River LLC (mailed to Charlotte) holds 49 parcels and 239.6 acres on the same streets, 46 of them vacant (land-use 958); the roll does not say what role it plays.

The commercial side, counted separately from housing: who holds the office, retail and industrial floor area.

Wilmington's biggest private holdings are apartments, not offices: most of the private parcels worth over $50M are garden or mid-rise complexes held by single-asset LLCs, often with out-of-state mailing addresses, and the roll does not name who is behind them. The retail landlords that file with the SEC (CBL and Brixmor) can be matched to the roll. Others are named here only by the roll entity, because no document we opened names the parent. Figures are roll appraisals, Nov 2026.

Claims this page would have made if a source could be opened. They are left out rather than guessed.

1. PropertyOwners MapServer, layer 0 (item summary: 'current property ownership records, rendered as points using coordinate values parsed from the stored MAPID/ALTID values in the IASWorld tax records'); fields include OWN1, MUNI, LUC, ACRES, APRLAND, APRBLDG, APRTOT, SALE_DATE, SALE_BOOK, SALE_PAGE, SALE_PRICE; ownership tax year 2027, appraisal year 2026; 49,967 parcels with MUNI 'WM' (48,505) or 'BD' (1,462, downtown) read 3 Nov 2026 — New Hanover County GIS (gis.nhcgov.com), from the county tax office's IASWorld roll · openA
2. NC1Map_Parcels FeatureServer, layer 1 'Parcels (polys)': statewide standardised parcel attributes incl. ownership, acreage and assessed value from county data producers; 103,489 New Hanover County parcels (cntyfips 129), sourceagnt 'New Hanover County Assessor' — NC OneMap / NC Center for Geographic Information and Analysis · openA
3. Register of Deeds: Fees (deeds $26.00 up to 15 pages; copies uncertified $0.25 per page, certified $5.00 first page, $2.00 each additional; excise tax 1991 to current $2.00 per $1000.00) — New Hanover County Register of Deeds · openA
4. Register of Deeds: Records Search ('Official Public Records Disclaimer'; the online index is reached through an Accept link to search.newhanoverdeeds.com, not followed) — New Hanover County Register of Deeds · openA
5. CBL & Associates Properties, Inc. Form 10-K for 2025 (lifestyle-centre table: Mayfaire Town Center, Wilmington NC, opened/acquired 2004/2015, expanded 2017, our ownership 100%, 670,379 sq ft; Schedule III initial cost land $26,333K, buildings $101,087K, gross carrying amount $51,509K, acquired 2015; Element by Westin Wilmington 49% unconsolidated JV) — CBL & Associates Properties, Inc. via SEC EDGAR · openA
6. nCino, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year ended 31 Jan 2026 (principal executive offices 6770 Parker Farm Drive; Item 2: headquarters leased, approx. 180,000 sq ft plus a 648-space parking deck, leases to October 2039, purchase option to 30 Nov 2028; Exhibits 10.11-10.22: Office Lease between nCino, Inc. and Cloud Real Estate Holdings, LLC) — nCino, Inc. via SEC EDGAR · openA
7. Live Oak Bancshares, Inc. Form 10-K for 2025 (Item 2: Wilmington main offices 1741, 1757, 1805, 1811 and 1817 Tiburon Dr, opened 2013-2024, 36,000-67,000 sq ft each, Owned; Tiburon Land Holdings, LLC formed 2022 to hold adjacent wetlands) — Live Oak Bancshares, Inc. via SEC EDGAR · openA
8. Snip, snip: City of Wilmington cuts ties with old government buildings, officially moves to Skyline Center (8 Sep 2025): 'we purchased the building for $68 million, it was appraised for $110 million'; 375,000 sq ft, 12 floors; Thalian Hall had served as City Hall since 1858 — WHQR Public Media · openA
9. A Novant Checkup (6 Jul 2023, with The Assembly): selling the county hospital to Novant Health was 'a roughly $2 billion sale that won approval in January 2021'; over $3 billion in promised capital investment — WHQR Public Media · openA
10. Independence Mall (North Carolina): sold to Westfield America 1997, to Centro Properties Group 2006; a $110 million loan went into default in October 2014; foreclosure auction set for July 2016; sale in 2017 — Wikipedia · openA
11. Q&A: Independence Mall's new owner talks potential tenants, changes (WilmingtonBiz article, 18 Aug 2025, reposted by the buyer): 'Deed records show the company bought much of the 800,000-square-foot mall and a nearby property from Rouse Properties, a subsidiary of ... Brookfield Properties, for more than $50 million'; Rouse had owned it since 2017 after the previous owner defaulted on a $110 million loan — 4th Dimension Properties (repost of WilmingtonBiz) · openA
12. University of North Carolina Wilmington (public research university, UNC System; coordinates 34.22583 N, 77.87333 W, which fall inside parcel R05511-003-001-000 on NC OneMap) — Wikipedia · openA
13. Brixmor Property Group Inc. Form 10-K for 2025, Schedule III: New Centre Market, Wilmington NC (initial cost land $5,730K, buildings $15,217K; gross $26,466K; built 1998; acquired Jun-11) and University Commons, Wilmington NC (land $6,910K, buildings $26,611K; gross $38,325K; built 2007; acquired Jun-11) — Brixmor Property Group Inc. via SEC EDGAR · openA