Rooms to Go CEO buys stake in former furniture building

BUYER: Dragonfly FTM LLC (principal: Jeffrey Seaman), Seffner
SELLER: Rhodes-Fort Myers Investors Limited Partnership
PROPERTY: 5370 S. Cleveland Ave., Fort Myers
PRICE: $1.03 million
PREVIOUS PRICE: $2.68 million, June 1984
LAW FIRM ON DEED: D2 Law Group PL, Tampa
PLANS, DESCRIPTION: Dragonfly FTM LLC, a partnership of the owners of Rhodes-Fort Myers Investors Limited Partnership and Rooms to Go Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Seaman, purchased a 66,000-square-foot retail and warehouse building at the southwest corner of Boyscout Drive and Cleveland Avenue for $1.03 million. The purchase price equated to $16 per square foot of leaseable space in the building and $256,812 per acre for the 4-acre parcel.

The building is the former Rhodes Furniture Store. Rooms to Go acquired Atlanta-based Rhodes Furniture out of bankruptcy in late 2005 for $48.8 million. Rooms to Go also briefly leased the Cleveland Avenue building as store, while it renovated a nearby location.

Rooms to Go was not involved in the purchase, according Peter Weitzner, a vice president of Rooms to Go.

“This was just a building [Seaman] was very familiar with,” Weitzner says. “It was an excellent piece of real estate. It's in a great location. It was just a good deal. It was bought as an investment.”
The new ownership is marketing the property for lease or sale to retail users that have large warehouse needs.