Investment firm buys Estero Santorini site

BUYER: Estero Grande LLC (principal: Walter S. Hagenbuckle), Cape Coral

SELLER: OB Santorini LLC

PROPERTY: west side of U.S. 41 at its intersection with Estero Parkway, Estero

PRICE: $2.88 million

PREVIOUS PRICE: $4.49 million and $4.53 million ($9.02 million total), September 2005

LAW FIRM ON DEED: Shumaker Loop & Kendrick LLP, Sarasota

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: TerraCap Partners, a real estate firm with offices in New York City and Cape Coral, purchased 29.6 acres for $2.88 million.

The price equated to $97,128 per acre.

Bonita Springs-based Hunt Commercial Development Corp. previously proposed a mixed-use project with 50,000 square feet of commercial space and 220 housing units for the high-profile site, just west of U.S. 41 in Estero. Hunt lost the property in a foreclosure proceeding, however, and the project, Santorini, was never built.

TerraCap Partners renamed the site Estero Grande.

“This is really the nucleus of Southwest Florida,” says W. Stephen Hagenbuckle, general partner of TerraCap Partners. “You've got Miromar [Outlets] with 600,000 square feet, Gulf Coast Town Center with 1.2 million and Coconut Point with 1.2 million square feet. So currently that area already supports over three million square feet of retail, restaurants and commercial.”

Hagenbuckle says the site is one of only two large-scale undeveloped parcels on U.S. 41 between Fort Myers and Naples. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. owns a parcel for a planned Walmart Supercenter across the street.

Development of the site is on hold, however, until U.S. 41 in that area is expanded from four to six lanes. Construction on the road expansion is scheduled to start in early 2011 and take a year to complete.

TerraCap Partners has raised $25 million to acquire undervalued real estate over the last 18 months. So far it has purchased 12 properties. It most recently acquired 13.6 acres on Pelican Colony Boulevard in Bonita Springs for $2.5 million.