U.S. Army buys 15 acres for Cape Coral reserve center

BUYER: United States of America, Mobile, Ala.

SELLER: Florida One Hundred LLC

PROPERTY: (tract 101) a portion of Corbett Road north of Diplomat Parkway, Cape Coral

PRICE: $2.25 million

PREVIOUS PRICE: $13.09 million, April 2004 (multiple parcels)

LAW FIRM ON DEED: U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers, Mobile, Ala.

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: The United States Army purchased 15 acres in northeast Cape Coral for $2.25 million.

The price equated to $150,000 per acre.

The U.S. Army purchased the northwest corner of Corbett Road Industrial Park adjacent to a new Department of Veterans Affairs clinic to develop a new Army Reserve Center. The reserve center is envisioned as a 37,000-square-foot training facility with a 7,600-square-foot vehicle maintenance facility and a storage facility. The development will feature administrative, educational and assembly facilities, a library, learning center, weapons simulator and physical fitness areas for six Army Reserve units housing 300 reservists.

Design work on the project is scheduled to start in April and completion is expected by July 2013. FS&A and JKC joint Venture One LLC of Tampa has been awarded the design-build contract to develop the reserve center for $10.6 million.

While the purchase price per acre was higher than the average value in the area, officials involved in the purchase attributed the price to the long acquisition period and the specific land requirements for the development.

“We have a lot of limits on our possible locations,” says James Marshall, project manager with the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers. “We have to meet things like anti-terrorism setbacks. There are zoning considerations. When we looked there were 10 possible sites and this was the best one.”

Tad Yeatter, president of Cape Coral-based Schooner Bay Realty Inc., who handled the transaction, says the purchase was half the price paid per foot of land for the VA Clinic and that the U.S. government required a year-long due diligence.