Winter Park's Storage Quest buys Bradenton Big Jim's

BUYER: Storage Quest Bradenton Limited Partnership (Storage Quest Management (GP) Inc. and Christopher Miller), Winter Park

SELLER: Big Jim III LLC

PROPERTY: 6403 E. S.R. 64 and 690 65th St. E., Bradenton

PRICE: $6.05 million

PREVIOUS PRICE: $8.3 million, November 2005

LAW FIRM ON DEED: Williams Parker Harrison Dietz and Getzen, Sarasota

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: A Winter Park partnership purchased a 90,964-square-foot Big Jim Self Storage facility for $6.05 million.

The price equated to $67 per square foot.

Built in 2003, the class-A property offers 457 climate controlled and 166 non-climate controlled units. The 6.03-acre site also offers three parking spaces. Units range in size from 15 to 300 square feet. The center's occupancy was about 70% at the time of the sale.

Michael Mele of Marcus & Millichap's National Self-Storage Group in the Tampa office handled the transaction.

“The property was performing well,” Mele says. “We are back to pre-crash [capitalization] rates. This cap rate was around 6.5%. The price per square foot isn't there yet though. We had more than 10 offers, and along with price this buyer was chosen because they offered a very short due diligence period.”

Mele says that very few well-located, quality self-storage properties are on the real estate market right now.

Big Jim Self Storage LLC is the Sarasota-based owner and operator of three self-storage facilities. It owns facilities in North Port, Ruskin and Sarasota.

The purchase entity Storage Quest Bradenton Limited Partnership mortgaged the property to USAmeriBank for $3.71 million.