Jukebox record.

• Position: NC TREND: Charlotte Region

Perhaps in a just world, former First Union and Wachovia investors would be sharing in the proceeds of the $284 million sale of Charlotte's One Wells Fargo Center--the highest price ever paid for a North Carolina office building. It's where Wachovia executives concocted the ill-advised 2006 acquisition of Golden West Financial, turning a famous North Carolina institution into a ward of the federal government, which directed its sale. Wells Fargo got the bank for a steal in the dark days of 2008. But rather than investors, the winners from this sale are Starwood Capital and Vision Properties, who bought the 42-story "jukebox" tower for $245 million three years earlier from an affiliate of Childress Klein Properties.

The buyer is Nevada businessman Dennis Troesh. The sale of the building, which opened in 1988 as First Union Center and is 98% leased, topped the $250 million sale of Hearst Tower in 2012 as a record price in the state. The assessed value of One Wells Fargo was $182 million. Brokers started working on the deal last September, and it took longer than expected because of its complexity, says Will Yowell, an Atlanta-based CBRE vice chairman.

"There was a fairly finite universe of prospective investors," Yowell says. When the 1-million-square-foot building sold in 2013, "Charlotte was still reeling a bit," he says. "People were concerned about what was happening with the big banks."

Today feels a lot different, with Charlotte perceived as less dependent on Bank of America and Wells Fargo, he says. The price also reflects confidence that Wells Fargo, which occupies 70% of the building and...