Dealmaker gets holiday wish

The saying in real estate is every property has a story, but this tale sounds almost too bizarre to be true.

It starts with a deserted industrial property in a remote part of town. The 200,000-square-foot complex, built in the go-go mid-2000s, is draped in opulence, down to the 25-foot marble conference table and helicopter hangar. Add in an ambitious broker who spent five years hunting the listing. After getting the listing, the broker engages in a grueling 14-month national search for a buyer.

Then this: A buyer — from right next door — emerges. The buyer pays around 75% less than it cost to build the stunning facility.

That's the strange-but-true story behind the early December sale of the former Kearney Construction headquarters in the Madison Industrial Park in Riverview, in east Hillsborough County. Apartment construction supply firm Chadwell Supply bought the building for $7.1 million in a deal that closed in early December, according to Hillsborough property records.
Site development firm Kearney Construction built the complex, on 21.5 acres, in 2006. In addition to space for a chopper, it has a 16-tank fueling station and 26-foot-high ceilings. The complex, which cost $34 million to build, also includes 50,000 square feet of office space and two warehouses. But Kearney filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and left the building.

The complex, at 5115 Joanne Kearney Blvd., was tied up in foreclosure proceedings for five years, and during that time CBRE broker Rick Narkiewicz began to closely follow the property. It was too cool, Narkiewicz believed, to not be a part of. Cool, but challenging. “As special as the property is,” Narkiewicz tells Coffee Talk, “it only fits a very small percent of the population.”

Narkiewicz fully embraced the challenge when he picked up the listing in June 2014. He launched marketing plans as far as California, targeting distributors and other industrial players. At one point he offered prospects a $200 gift card to Outback just for taking a look and hearing a pitch. He began to devise a plan to work with a buyer on converting the whole complex to office space.

A few weeks ago Narkiewicz began to work seriously with a potential buyer in Chicago, a natural gas company. Then Chadwell Supply, with a facility at 4907 Joanne Kearney Blvd., rose to the top.

Narkiewicz chuckles at the irony of finding a buyer so close to home after all this time. He's also happy to have a nice holiday commission. Says Narkiewicz: “We worked really hard to get lucky.”