Investors buy charter school for $6M

An investment group based in Buffalo, N.Y. has acquired the Imagine School in east Manatee County for $6.6 million.

Hemisphere Lakewood Ranch LLC, a company comprising of father-and-son investors Peter and Jules Baldassari, acquired the 33,000-square-foot charter school and adjacent land from an affiliate of Lakewood Ranch master developer Schroeder-Manatee Ranch Inc. The sale closed Monday.

The school, which has about 500 students and a capacity for 650, has roughly nine years left on a lease commitment for the two buildings involved in the sale.