Steelbridge Capital buys Pelican Bay Executive Center

BUYER: Steelbridge Pelican Bay LLC (Series of Agre Steelbridge JV LLC), Miami
SELLER: PBEC HMA Inc.
PROPERTY: 5801-5811 Pelican Bay Blvd., Naples
PRICE: $33.65 million
PREVIOUS PRICE: $25.8 million, August 2002
LAW FIRM ON DEED: Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, Nashville

PLANS, DESCRIPTION:
Chicago-based Steelbridge Capital LLC purchased the 168,165-square-foot Pelican Bay Executive Center for $33.65 million.

The price equated to $200 per square foot. That figure is higher than the two-year average price per square foot for office space ($131) in Southwest Florida, according to the CoStar Group.

The property features two six-story buildings constructed in 1980 and 1981, a 242-space parking garage and a freestanding bank building leased to Wells Fargo.

Pelican Bay Executive Center was 70% occupied at the time of the sale. Tenants include Fischer International Systems Corp., Hahn Loeser and NewsBank.

The property was previously owned by HMA, which also occupied much of it. After HMA was acquired and merged into Community Health Systems earlier this year, the newly joined company decided to relocate operations from the Naples property back to its home office in Tennessee. That resulted in much of the current vacancy.

Steelbridge Capital entered the market recently with its purchase of the seven-story, 68,487-square-foot SunTrust Bank Building adjacent to the Waterside Shops retail development for $12.6 million.

“We love the dynamics of the Naples market,” Jay Caplin, managing principal of Steelbridge Capital, says in a press release. “We felt that [Pelican Bay Executive Center] was a terrific opportunity in a pocket of Pelican Bay, an area we are already well aware of.”

The company says it is currently evaluating what portions of the property to improve or upgrade.

“This gives us two very different properties,” he says. “One is a little more boutique, that's the SunTrust building, while Pelican Bay has a little bigger floor plans and can house slightly larger tenants. So we can cater to a wider variety of tenants.”

Kevin Fitzgerald of NAI Southwest Florida Inc. represented the seller.

CRE Consultants will handle the leasing and management of the property for the new owner.

The purchase entity, Steelbridge Pelican Bay LLC, mortgaged the property to Pacific Western Bank for $30 million.