Recently shuttered Denny’s property in Sarasota sells for $4.25 million

A 1.59-acre Sarasota restaurant property has sold. The recently closed Denny’s at 3701 Bee Ridge Road changed hands this week for $4.25 million, according to Brian Seidel and Tyler Sluman of American Property Group, who brokered the deal.

The seller is Julian Parry. The buyer in the off-market sale is Rich Global, an investment and development firm in West Palm Beach led by investor Nathan Rich.

Denny’s had its last day of business on Bee Ridge Road on Aug. 2, and the sale closed Aug. 4, according to Sluman, who estimates he has collaborated with Rich on $40 to $50 million in deals over the last four years. He describes Rich as a “deal maker” who is “involved in everything.”

Next, the plan is to renovate the 6,200-square-foot building.

“We will not be knocking down Denny's,” Sluman says. “We'll be renovating Denny's and making it two or three storefronts.”

The multi-tenant building will likely include one storefront with an endcap drive-thru. While the leases have not yet been signed so he can't name names, Sluman says the tenants will be “a couple of brands that aren't in Sarasota yet." He adds: “Good stuff is coming.”

Photo by Elizabeth King

Even though the Denny’s location was not on the market, there had been significant interest in the property over the last decade, according to Seidel.

“Denny’s is kind of a unicorn site in Sarasota,” Seidel says.

The site contains 290 feet of frontage on Bee Ridge Road, a 6,200-square-foot building and 100 parking spaces, a combination that Sluman says is “impossible to find.”

A site with those components was attractive to Rich, who has a “long vision for what these projects should be to improve the areas in which they’re located,” Seidel says. “We know that when we bring him the buy box that he wants, he works with us to get the deals complete.”

Rich and Sluman are “actively on the hunt for other opportunities like this,” Seidel adds. “If you have other Denny's anywhere in Southwest Florida, we'd love to look at them.”

As someone who grew up in Sarasota, Seidel says he has his own memories of the Bee Ridge Denny’s over the years but also sees a different future for the site.

“It was just the end of the lease and time to be reimagined as something else,” Seidel says. “It's the end of an era.”