The sellers of Museum Tower, a 12-story office building at 100 W. Liberty, nearly doubled their $20 million investment in three years. The buyer thinks it can do just fine, too.

The 258,000-square-foot building, which includes about 148,000 square feet of offices and a four-floor parking garage, was purchased for $38.25 million by a unit of CM Capital Corp. of Palo Alto, Calif.

The seller, a partnership of NBS Real Estate Capital and Capstone Partners, both of Portland, Ore., paid $20 million for the property in 2004, when it was still commonly known as “the Porsche Building” in honor of its original tenant, Porsche North America.

Rance Gregory, chief executive officer of NBS Real Estate Capital, said the previous owners invested “quite a bit of capital” into sprucing up the building’s lobby and common areas, and boosted occupancy from 84 percent in 2003 to 100 percent today. The building dates from 1989.

The previous owners hadn’t been looking to sell the property, Gregory said, but paid attention when Floyd Rowley, the Colliers International broker who represented CM Capital, came by with an offer.

Garrett Chan, a vice president of CM Capital, said a presentation by Rowley and Tim Ruffin of Colliers in late May spurred his company’s interest in the Reno market. Museum Tower marks its first foray into Nevada.

The region, Chan said, continues to show good economic fundamentals, and downtown has gotten an additional boost from ongoing redevelopment. Museum Tower, he said, “is the best building downtown. It’s got a good mix of tenants.”

Among those tenants are the law firms of Jones Vargas and McDonald Carano and several accounting firms and trust companies.

Chan said CM Capital, which typically buys properties as long-term holdings, views the building as a good value at the $34.25 million price. Said Rowley, “The pricing of Museum Tower proves that astute investors will pay top dollar for well-located, quality assets with a quality tenant roster and significant term remaining on their leases.”

The purchase also delivers a strong signal about the strength of the overall Reno market, said Aiman Noursoultanova, an investment broker with CB Richard Ellis.

“It tells us that investors are bullish in our market,” she said. Brian Armon, a principal in the real estate firm Trinity, said the sale showed the result of faith the downtown area. “In real estate you make money on the purchase,” Armon said. “It was a great purchase with vision. When everyone else felt like downtown was dying, they were willing to step in and buy the building.”

Colliers International will continue to handle leasing on the building.