Mall outparcel in Tampa sells, but has the mall itself been sold?

Citrus Park Plaza, an outparcel of Citrus Park Town Center in Tampa, has been sold for $5.65 million as evidence mounts that the main property itself might have changed hands.

The 13,000-square-foot Citrus Park Plaza went to an undisclosed buyer. The center itself, which doesn’t have an anchor, was 100% occupied at the time of the sale. 

Dervech Real Estate arranged the sale. Jeff Dervech, the firm’s president, says in an email that “the purchaser was a private family partnership.”

On the bigger mall property, a spreadsheet showing mall transactions recently provided to the Business Observer by Colliers shows Citrus Park Town Center had been sold to the Georgia mall operator Hull Property Group. There were few details about the transaction; the Colliers spreadsheet states the property, once owned by Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, had sold in late May.

Hull officials did not responded to a request for comment. Its website as of June 1 does not list Citrus Park Town Center as one of its properties. However, Hull’s name and logo appears at the bottom of the Citrus Park Town Center website, along with a 2022 copyright.

A search of Hillsborough County property records didn’t show a transaction in either company’s name as of June 17. Of course, deals of this magnitude are often shaded in LLCs and kept quiet for competitive reasons, making it difficult to track down information. But county records do show Hull filed a notice of commencement with Hillsborough County on June 2 for a small project on the mall property.

The potential sale of Citrus Park Town Center follows several mall purchases at what seem like bargain basement prices along the Gulf Coast in the past couple years, including the Crossings at Siesta Key mall, which sold for $25.1 million in May; DeSoto Square in Bradenton selling for $20 million in October; and Edison Mall in Fort Myers selling for $33 million in 2019.