With over eight historical buildings going back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Cotton Exchange in Wilmington, North Carolina, is a shopping complex with a unique history. It was given this name because it contains the Old James Sprunt Cotton Exchange building, which formerly claimed to be the greatest cotton exporter on the east coast until it was decommissioned in 1950. The Old James Sprunt Cotton Exchange building was decommissioned in 1950.

Wilmington’s Cotton Exchange was located on what is now known as North Front Street, in the heart of downtown. Over 20 stores and restaurants are currently located within the walls of old buildings that have been restored to their original splendor. Jean and John Bullock, who purchased the center in 1990, are the current private owners of the facility.

By the 1970s, Wilmington, North Carolina, a once-thriving railroad hub and port city, had suffered a significant decline in quality of life. When the Atlantic Coastline Railroad chose to relocate its headquarters to Florida in 1961, a large number of enterprises had already left the state. Where previously there had been a thriving economy, today there were only dilapidated buildings. The Wilmington Redevelopment Commission began demolishing buildings in an attempt to revitalize the city in order to make way for new ones as part of its effort to reinvent Wilmington.

The city had already demolished numerous buildings in and around downtown by 1974, and several more were set to be demolished as well; this included a group of eight buildings on what was then Nutt Street that are today being used as furniture storage.

A limited company with general partners J.R. Reaves and M.T. Murray, however, purchased the eight buildings from the Wilmington Redevelopment Commission for a total of $242,416 just before demolition was about to commence. They had intended to rehabilitate the building and rent it out as shop space in the future. In the wake of their visits to numerous other cities that had recently undergone renovations (including Charleston, Savannah, Atlanta, and San Francisco), Reaves and Murray set out to construct a business plan for their new location.

They intended to leave the majority of the structures in their current condition, with only a few modern amenities added to the already existing structures. A “Historic Adventure in Trade” was the concept they were going for, where pedestrians could go and enjoy modern shopping in a historic setting.

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