DETROIT — One of the two shorter office towers that are part of the Renaissance Center complex is heading to auction in March.

The 600 Tower is set to be auctioned online March 17-19, with a starting bid of $2.75 million, according to a listing on Ten-X.com.

"We wanted to market this to the widest possible pool of potential buyers and we felt that the best way to do that would be to do an auction sale," said Steven Silverman, senior vice president of national investment and brokerage advisory, auction services for Friedman Real Estate.

Friedman Real Estate, a Farmington Hills-based global firm, is representing the property, which it purchased as a minority partner with California-based F&F Capital Group in 2023. Silverman said the initial plan was to retain the building with the desire to lease it to a large single tenant.

The 334,000-square-foot building sits mostly vacant with 11% occupancy, according to the listing for the auction, which was previously reported by Crain's Detroit Business.

"We have it on the market for lease," Silverman said. "We actually have substantial interest in various floors of the building. F&F Capital is in the business of really trying to find a single user for the entire building versus doing multi-tenant and so given that there's more interest right now from a multi-tenant perspective than a single-tenant perspective, F& F Capital thought it made most sense for them to sell the building to either an end user or a new investor."

During the latter part of 2024, the city granted the owner's request to rezone 600 Tower from primarily office use to B5 major business district, which the listing says allows for a range of uses including office, residential, retail, hotel and mixed-use development.

The building was constructed in 1980 and was renovated in 2024, according to the listing. It includes an on-site 475-space parking garage.

In 2023, F&F Capital along with Friedman Real Estate purchased the 500 and 600 towers from a Newark, N.J.-based energy company. Following the purchase, Friedman and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan announced that the insurance firm signed a long-term lease for the 500 Tower. BCBSM previously had offices in both towers. At the time, Jared Friedman said the firm would look to lease out 330,000 square feet available in the 600 tower.

Silverman said that following a six-month process, the firms sold the 500 Tower to Florida-based Kawa Private Investments LLC.

General Motors Co. owns or controls the rest of the Renaissance Center complex, where its global headquarters is based. The automaker plans to move by January 2026 into Bedrock's Hudson's Detroit. GM, partnering with Bedrock Detroit, has proposed a $1.6 billion renovation plan that includes tearing down towers 300 and 400 and repurposing underutilized spaces in the other towers.

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