Hines lists historic Kearns and Daynes office buildings for sale

by Taylor Anderson | Sep 18, 2026

Hines and its co-owning partner listed the Kearns Building on Main Street for sale on Thursday after owning the historic building for over three decades and wrapping up extensive renovations six years ago.

The 10-story, 169,000-square-foot building at 136 S. Main underwent an extensive, $20 million renovation that wrapped in 2020. Occupancy sits at 62.4 percent and the building has a 3.5-year weighted average lease term.

Hines has been a co-owner of the building since the 1980s, along with the adjacent Daynes Jewelry Building to the north. The Daynes Building at 128 S. Main is included as part of the sale.

The buildings are examples of office buildings that are poised to thrive in the post-COVID office building market.

With its heavy investment into upgrades, premium Main Street location and added amenities, Hines and co-owners solidified the building as a Class A asset that can still attract office tenants.

Class B and C buildings in areas that aren’t surrounded by amenities, meanwhile, continue to struggle.

Overall, Downtown Salt Lake City office rents have increased 7 percent over the past 12 months, according to brokers at CBRE, which brought the Kearns and Daynes buildings to market this week.

The updates, CBRE said, “has resulted in much of the rent roll renewing or expanding since 2021 with near-term expirations providing nearly 20 percent mark-to-market upside.”

Translation: New leases could fetch about 20 percent more than existing rents, given that existing leases were likely signed at a time when office owners were struggling to compete and fill spaces following the COVID flight from office space.

CBRE said Downtown is in its seventh consecutive quarter of positive office absorption. Class A office spaces have a record-low 6.5 percent vacancy rate, CBRE said.

“There has never been a better time to own office in Salt Lake City, and the Kearns Building provides a one-of-a-kind opportunity,” CBRE brokers wrote.

The Kearns Building was erected in 1910, during which Downtown Salt Lake was first taking its more urban form roughly six decades after pioneers began settling the Salt Lake Valley.

The steel-supported building was built during a rush of high-rises at the time, including the Newhouse and Utah hotels, also on Main Street.

Marketers at the time of construction called the building “the finest office building between Chicago and San Francisco,” and businesses began taking occupancy in February 1911.

Hines’ future in Salt Lake City

The Texas-based developer owns the site immediately south of the Kearns Building, a vacant lot that was previously the Utah Theater.

Salt Lake City sold the theater to Hines for $0 as part of a plan to convert the site into high-rise apartments. But delays in getting that project financed and out of the ground preceded a glut in new apartments in the Downtown submarket, and Hines has yet to break ground on the project.

Hines was also previously set to build a new 23-story office building on a site owned by Salt Lake County, immediately next to the District Attorney building on 500 South and Main Street, though it relinquished control of the site in 2024.

Hines more recently finished retrofitting a historic office building on South Temple into what it calls the Seraph apartments. Those units came online around the same time as hundreds of competing units at the Astra and Worthington towers, also Downtown.

Hines declined to comment on the record about the sale of the Kearns and Daynes buildings and its future plans in the city.

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