Dentists buy St. Petersburg office building for school

BUYER: Dental Investment LLC (principals: Joan Forrest, Peter Dawson, Glenn DuPont, Ronald Kobernick and DeWitt Wilkerson)St. Petersburg

SELLER: First Home Bank

PROPERTY: 414 Fourth Ave. N., St Petersburg

PRICE: $1.34 million

PREVIOUS PRICE: $1.2 million, April 2010

TITLE FIRM ON DEED: Seminole Title Co., Seminole

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: A trio of dentists and the owners of The Dawson Academy, a dental training school, purchased a 7,015-square-foot building for $1.34 million.

The price equated to $191 per square foot.

The academy, which provides continuing dental-education classes, will occupy the top floor of the building, known as the Tourtelot Brothers office building. Periodontist Dr. Ronald Kobernick will occupy space on the bottom floor, along with the general dentistry practice of Dr. Glenn DuPont and Dr. DeWitt Wilkerson. The three dentists are all instructors with the school.

“We were coming up on the time for our lease,” says Sallie Bussey, operations director for The Dawson Academy. “[Academy president and CEO] Joan Forrest has been looking at that building for a while. She liked the look of the building and saw it when it came on the market.”

The owners are in the planning stages on the build out. The academy hopes to occupy the building by early January.

Vector Commercial Real Estate Services handled the transaction.

The purchase entity Dental Investment LLC mortgaged the property to Synovus Bank for $1.31 million.