Great Bay Distributors buys Pinellas land

BUYER: GB3 Partners LLLP (Great Bay Distributors), Largo

SELLER: Eagle FL V SPE LLC

PROPERTY: a portion of Interstate 275 north Gandy Boulevard and east of 28th Street North, Pinellas County

PRICE: $9.75 million

LAW FIRM ON DEED: Holland & Knight LLP, Tampa

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: Largo-based beer wholesaler Great Bay Distributors Inc. purchased 96 acres in Pinellas County for $9.75 million.

The price equated to $101,563 per acre.

The Anheuser-Busch distributor purchased the vacant land, which features nearly 55 acres of buildable land, for the company's future expansion.

“We've been looking for land in Pinellas County off and on for the past five years,” says Ron Petrini, Great Bay Distributors' CEO. “We've basically outgrown our facility in Largo. We started on this purchase back in April or May of last year; it took that long to come together. We are really in the beginning stages of planning what we want to put there.”

The company is working to have the new facility completed in three years. At a minimum, the new headquarters will include a beer warehouse and office space for administration and sales. Great Bay Distributors' existing facility on Starkey Road is roughly 140,000 square feet.

“A big part of the reason we need to expand is we've been taking on a number of additional products,” Petrini says.

Jarib Rodriguez and John Jenkins of CBRE represented the seller, BB&T, which acquired the asset through foreclosure in early 2011. John Dunphy of Colliers International Tampa Bay represented the buyer.

The property is best known as the proposed site of the La Entrada mixed-use project and as one of the sites suggested for a replacement baseball stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays.