James Goodnight's renovation projects at four historic buildings in downtown Wilmington are expected to bring more office space, and potentially restaurants, to Princess and Front streets.

Goodnight bought and renovated 21 S. Front St. to create the headquarters for Wilmington-based startup Next Glass in 2014 and 2015. He met this week in the Port City with historic preservation officials to discuss the possibilities for preservation tax credits that would offset the costs of rehabilitating smaller buildings he owns at 222 and 226 Princess St.

222 Princess St. was built around 1905, and 226 Princess St., a couple decades later, Goodnight said. City Electric Co. occupied 226 Princess St. in the 1930s, and in more recent times, the space housed a law office.

Goodnight said he hopes to connect the two buildings, which share a wall, with some kind of passageway that could potentially make the combined space attractive to a single user.

Goodnight said their size, about 1,300 square feet each above ground, was one of the reasons he bought the Princess Street buildings.

"It's a cool, unique project on the smaller side, which doesn't give you too much heartburn," Goodnight said. "When you get much above 10,000 square feet, it's hard to keep track of the moving parts."

As crews make progress with his Wilmington buildings, the Raleigh-based Goodnight, son of SAS founder Jim Goodnight, is also currently working on a 48,000-square-foot project in south Raleigh. 

Goodnight hopes to be finished with his latest Wilmington projects by next year, including office space on the second floors of 1 and 9 S. Front St. and on the third floor of 1 S. Front St. Some inside work began after the previous occupant of the second and third floors of 1 S. Front St., a bar, moved out in November.

"It's a great old building; it just wasn't thoughtfully maintained, and it's such prime real estate in downtown Wilmington," Goodnight said of 1 S. Front. 

Both 1 and 9 S. Front St. were built around 1900 and designed by famed Wilmington architect Henry Bonitz.  

The general contractor on Goodnight's projects is Wilmington-based Old School Rebuilders. On the second floor of 1 and 9 S. Front, crews were able to reconnect the two buildings for the first time in decades by uncovering a bricked up archway. That could lead to one office tenant using the 6,000 square feet of connected space, Goodnight said.

Another 3,000 square feet will be available for an office user on the third floor of 1 S. Front while the third floor of 9 S. Front will likely remain an apartment, Goodnight said. Brian Wallace of Raleigh-based York Properties Inc. is the listing agent for Goodnight's new commercial space in Wilmington.

The addition of offices in historic buildings downtown is a good thing for the city, officials say, because it boosts efforts to attract startups and other companies that want unique spaces in an urban setting.

"We continue to see some incremental growth in terms of our office space inventory," said Ed Wolverton, president and CEO of Wilmington Downtown Inc. "Of course, we took a big leap last year with the opening of the 101 N. Third office building (aka the BB&T building) so that’s all brand new office. This addition of James’s space will add more to that office inventory."

On Thursday, WDI held a Downtown Economic Series luncheon, celebrating downtown's growth and hailing the announcement that downtown's newly formed Municipal Services District will be the first such district in the U.S. to be certified as AT&T Fiber Ready.