Rooms To Go buys Darby, plans store

Rooms To Go buys Darby, plans store

BUYER: Redfish II LLC (principal: Jeffrey Seaman), Atlanta

SELLER: Geyer-Dickinson Partnership LLP

PROPERTY: 5170 and 5120 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota

PRICE: $6.75 million

PREVIOUS PRICE: $6.89 million, February 2006 and $1.31 million, February 2006

LAW FIRM ON DEED: D2 Law Group PL, Tampa

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: Seffner-based furniture retailer Rooms To Go Inc. purchased the former Darby Automotive dealership on Tamiami Trail south of Phillippi Street for $6.75 million. The purchase price equated to $1.38 million per acre.

The retailer plans to demolish all the dealership buildings on the 4.9-acre site to develop a 30,000-square-foot store. The new store would replace a nearby smaller store at 4101 S. Tamiami Trail.

“It's going to be a year to a year-and-a-half before that store is open,” says Peter Weitzner, a vice president of Rooms To Go.” We're going to start construction there as soon as we can. The reason for the move is Sarasota has been a very good market for us, and we feel we need a bigger showroom there. This new one will be nearly twice as large as our current store.”

Rooms To Go hopes to sell or lease a 1.27-acre portion of the land for the new store to another user. Once its new building is completed, the retailer plans to also sell its current store.