It looks like the center of downtown Greensboro is moving northwest a couple of blocks.

Wednesday, May 24, GEMCAP and Carolina Investment Partners announced they are building a nine-story, 112,000-square-foot office building on the northwest corner of North Eugene Street and Bellemeade Avenue. If you’re thinking that’s where the First National Bank Field is, you’re right.

This building will be built on the corner where the oversized baseballs and the bench are now. The structure will be built to compliment the baseball stadium with matching brickwork and archways. The ground floor will be retail with a public space leading to the ballpark.

Also, the building will have a large common area, with a balcony overlooking the ball field, open to all the tenants. The way the building has been designed, it appears that in a few years people will think it has always been there.

Right across Eugene Street from this building, the Carroll Companies, which owns this newspaper, is building Carroll at Bellemeade, with about 300 apartments and a Hyatt Place Hotel on the corner.

Across Bellemeade, the City of Greensboro has announced plans to enter into a partnership with the Carroll Companies to build a parking deck, which will also have retail on the first floor, and it has been reported that an Aloft hotel is also planned for that corner.

John Martin, managing partner of GEMCAP, said that having the city commit to building a parking deck across the street was a key piece of the puzzle, making it possible to go forward with the project. GEMCAP is teamed with Carolina Investment Partners, headed by Robin Team and Linville Team Partners on this project.

Martin said the unique location on the ballpark property came from a conversation he had with Grasshopper General Manager Donald Moore, who said they had some excess land around the ballpark, and that started the ball rolling.

Martin said they have been working on the project for almost a year but that a lot of moving parts had to fall into place before they could move forward. He said they hope to break ground after the baseball season is over in the fall, and they would like to have the building completed by the fall of 2018.

If you’re trying to remember when the last time a midrise office building went up in downtown Greensboro, it was the early 1990s. So in many ways this building is breaking new ground, or at least ground that hasn’t been broken in a while.

The lead tenant for the building is the Tuggle Duggins law firm, which is currently in the Lincoln Financial building. And that’s actually more good news for downtown Greensboro. Tuggle Duggins has to move because Lincoln Financial wants that space to move more of their own employees into the building.

Tuggle Duggins will be taking two-and-a-half floors, which means there is space available in the building for a tenant who wants class A office space in a new building overlooking the ballpark and on what is becoming the hottest corner in downtown Greensboro.

Martin said that Zack Matheny, president of Downtown Greensboro Inc., was instrumental in helping them put together the pieces that would make the deal work.