- December 9, 2024
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Government spending: The Lee County Property Appraiser’s office has leased a 31,006-square-foot space in downtown Fort Myers. The office is at 1520 Lee St. in the city’s commercial district. For the past 30 years, the agency has worked out of a space at 2480 Thompson St. right off of Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard and Fowler Street. Lee’s property appraiser Matt Caldwell says in a statement that the space is larger and will better serve the growing area. The deal was brokered by Adam Palmer, managing principal at LQ Commercial. The firm says it is the largest office lease in Southwest Florida thus far this year and the largest in the core of downtown in more than two decades.
Holy moly: Ave Maria, the Collier County master-planned community, has reached a milestone. Developers say that more than 5,000 new homes have been sold within the community since its inception in 2007. The news is based on reports from four residential builders: Pulte Homes, Lennar, CC Homes and Del Webb. Ave Maria, being developed by the Barron Collier Cos., is on Oil Well and Camp Keais Roads on the eastern side of the county. When complete, the 5,000-acre self-sustaining community is expected to have 11,000 residences and 1.8 million square feet of retail and office space. Along with reaching the 5,000-home mark, a new commercial center is nearly complete. When it opens, the 21,000-square-foot Midtown Place will count LEDO Pizza, Sunshine Ace Hardware, Dunkin’, Cold Stone Creamery and Ave Nails as tenants. An NCH Immediate Care Center and Umami Ave Restaurant will open early next year.
If you build it, they will rent: The developer behind a Pasco County build-to-rent community has obtained $32 million in construction financing. Agador Spartacus Development got the financing from North River Partners and Amzak Capital Partners. JLL Capital Markets represented the developer and announced the financing. Terms were not disclosed. Agador Spartacus is building the 162-unit Magnolia at Spring Hill. The community, when complete, will have two-bedroom flats as well as two- and three-bedroom townhouse units. The community in Pasco’s Spring Hill will come with many standard amenities like a pool, gym and playgrounds but will also have pickleball and basketball courts and an outdoor summer kitchen. Construction is expected to be completed late next year. Agador Spartacus is an Aventura developer with 5 million square feet of commercial, multifamily, hospitality and retail properties and another million square feet in the pipeline, according to its website. It currently has two other Magnolia projects in the works, one in Winter Haven and one in Wildwood. JLL’s managing director Max La Cava and associate Pier Barinci represented Agador Spartacus in the deal.
Pretty vacant: A vacant office building in Tampa has sold. The 50,000-square-foot property is at 4406 W. Linebaugh Ave., just west of Dale Mabry Highway. The buyer, a local investor associated with the Royal Auction Group, paid $5 million. The previous owner bought the building in 2018 for $3.45 million. The purchase was announced by the Pinellas County commercial real estate agency John Burpee & Associates. The firm, which represented the buyer, has also been hired to handle the leasing for the three-story building. Radiant Asset Management of Florida will be the property manager. The building’s first tenant will be the Royal Auction Group, which is taking 10,000 square feet to use as its corporate headquarters. The heavy equipment and machinery government surplus and consignment public auction group currently operates in Fort Myers, Zephyrhills and outside Florida in Dallas.. Burpee says the company chose the space because it is looking to expand its operations in the Tampa Bay market. John Burpee and Troy Weintraub represented the buyer.
Industrial know how: Equus Capital Partners, a Pennsylvania real estate investment firm, has bought a Lakeland industrial center. The firm paid $38 million for the two-building property at 900 N. Chestnut Road, about 4 miles from Lakeland Linder International Airport. High Street Logistics Properties was the previous owner. It paid $25.92 million for the property in 2021, according to Polk County property records. Equus says the purchase “was made on behalf of a programmatic joint venture between an affiliate of Equus and a U.S. based public pension plan.” The 299,241-square-foot industrial property is fully leased to two tenants — Gruma, a subsidiary of food manufacturer Mission Foods, and Safelite, a subsidiary of vehicle glass repair company Belron. The buildings were built in 2021 with a minimum clear height of 32 feet, Early Suppression Fast Response sprinkler systems, LED lighting and excess trailer parking with a total of 89 stalls, according to a statement.
Big get bigger: Benderson Development, the prolific East Manatee County commercial real estate firm, keeps growing. The firm announced last week that it bought an iconic 25,000-square-foot mixed-use property at 307 S. Park Avenue in Winter Park. The building, named Park Plaza, has retail on the ground floor and the Park Plaza Hotel, a 28-room boutique hotel, on the second. Winter Park’s Park Avenue is a historic cobblestoned street with more than140 restaurants, shops and museums. Benderson did not disclose a sales price and Orange County records had not been updated as of Sep. 25. The Winter Park property wasn’t the only purchase Benderson announced last week. The firm also bought the 280,000-square-foot Cypress Trace shopping center in Fort Myers. The Winn-Dixie anchored center sits on 29 acres at 13300 S. Cleveland Ave. at the intersection of U.S. Highway 41 and Daniels Parkway. Its tenant mix includes Bealls, Five Below, Burlington and Ross Dress for Less. Lee County records show it paid $40.35 million for the center. So far this year, Benderson has bought about a half dozen properties in and out of the state.
That’s amore: A former Italian deli and market in Sarasota is up for sale and the price to buy it has just dropped. The property at 2080 Constitution Blvd., once the home of Casa Italia, is listed by the commercial real estate firm Ian Black Real Estate. The firm sent out a marketing email last week announcing the price for the 3,344-square-foot space had been reduced from $919,000 to $795,000. According to the listing, the space has multiple deli coolers, some deli equipment, an exhaust hood with Ansul system, grease trap, walk-in freezer and cooler. There also are offices, two bathrooms and 12 parking spaces in the front as well as a front patio and space in the back for additional storage or expansion. Buyers who don’t run it as a market or restaurant will have options. According to the listing, the current zoning allows for several usages including group living, day care, pet grooming, place of worship, bar or lodge. Nick DeVito and Brie Tulp are representing the property for Ian Black.
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