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There's patient money, and then there's really patient money.
For nearly 50 years, the Austin family has kept a tight hold on the original anchor of Tampa's Westshore district, the 300,000-square-foot Austin Center built in 1967.
That hold has paid off.
Beverly Austin, the widow of original Westshore developer Al Austin, finally parted ways with the five buildings along Westshore Boulevard: She sold the property to Redstone Investments April 6 for $28.5 million, according to property records.
The Austin Center last changed hands in 1971, when the younger Austins bought out Al's father and mother for $152,500 -- or nearly $885,000 today. Even after inflation, that's just $3 per square foot.
How times have changed. Despite the property's age, Redstone paid $95 per square foot — more than 30 times Austin's inflation-adjusted buyout price.
The sale was well below the $201 per square foot Greenfield Partners paid for the similar-sized Wells Fargo Center on Ashley Drive in November, according to Cushman & Wakefield. But that's downtown Tampa, and all contained in a single building.
The Austin Center sale was a stronger price, however, than the $80 per square foot B&L Investments paid to get a similar-sized property on East Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard just off Interstate 4 last May.
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