Re/Max Alliance building sold, new owner plans to subdivide

BUYER: 2000 Webber Building LLC (SMM Investment Group LLC and Gavlin Holdings III LLLP), Sarasota
SELLER: Wells Fargo Bank NA as trustee for the registered holders of GE Business Loan Pass-Through Certificates Series 2004-2
PROPERTY: 2000 Webber St., Sarasota
PRICE: $2.1 million
PREVIOUS PRICE: $1.13 million, December 1995
LAW FIRM ON DEED: Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, Chicago

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: A Sarasota investment group headed by attorney and developer John Meshad purchased a 27,888-square-foot office building for $2.1 million.

The price equated to $73 per square foot.

Constructed in 2003 to house the booming Re/Max Alliance Group, the class A building features an attached parking garage. The real estate firm's owners, Tim and Judy Crowley, lost the building to GE Commercial Finance Business Property Corp. in May 2010 after the real estate market crash curtailed much of their business. However, the Re/Max franchise stayed in the building and continues to lease half the space.

The new owner plans to retrofit the building to lease the vacant half to one or possibly multiple office tenants.

Linda Emery of Sperry Van Ness Commercial Advisory Group's Sarasota office and Matthew Rotolante of the Sperry Van Ness Miami office handled the transaction. Rotolante had a relationship with the bank seller and Emery had the local connections and close understanding of the Sarasota market. Emery will be marketing the space for $18 triple net with a $6.45 common area maintenance charge.

“The bank wasn't going to do any of the work to separate it,” Emery says. “[The new owner] won't do anything to the space until it finds its first tenant.”