Tropics Software buys credit union headquarters building

BUYER: Tropics Software Technologies Inc. (principals: H. Lincoln Miller J., Kurt Miler, Massoud Mobarekeh, Rob West, Stephen Massingale), Sarasota

SELLER: Achieva Credit Union successor by merger to Sarasota Coastal Credit Union

PROPERTY: 7349 Merchant Court, Sarasota

PRICE: $1.9 million

PREVIOUS PRICE: $204,000, September 2000

LAW FIRM ON DEED: Shumaker Loop & Kenrick LLP, Sarasota

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: Sarasota-based Tropics Software Technologies purchased the 11,314-square-foot former Sarasota Coastal Credit Union headquarters building for $1.9 million.

The price equated to $168 per square foot.

The building, on Merchant Court in Lakewood Ranch Corporate Park, was built in 2001 and occupies a 1.3-acre parcel.

The seller, Clearwater-based Achieva Credit Union, took ownership of the building in late 2009 following a merger with the Sarasota Coastal Credit Union.

“It made sense to integrate staff to our corporate office and expand personnel in the [five existing] branches,” Achieva Credit Union President and Chief Executive Gary Regoli says in a press release. “Tropics Software Technologies had been looking for another office building and the timing was right for both of us.”

Tropics Software Technologies, which focuses on worker's compensation software, will be moving to the building from a space roughly half its size.

“The building is a nicely designed structure with excellent technology infrastructure and a redundant power source, which is ideal for our needs,” Mike Mobar, president and CEO of Tropics Software Technologies, says in a press release.