U.S. Tent Rental doubling space

SARASOTA — The Boyle family, owners of U.S. Tent Rental Inc., purchased the 73,820-square-foot former Berry Plastics industrial building and an adjacent 16.85 acres for $2.45 million.

The price equated to $33 per square foot for the existing building. That figure is less than the two-year average price per square foot for industrial space ($41) in the Tampa Bay area, according to the CoStar Group.

Located northeast of the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport, the warehouse/manufacturing building features eight dock-high loading areas and six overhead doors, three-phase power and ceiling heights that range from 16 feet to 24 feet. The building itself sits on two acres of land.

Roughly half of the vacant land to the north is wetlands, leaving somewhere in the area of eight acres of developable land. The purchase also included a cell phone tower leased to Verizon.

Brian Boyle, CEO of U.S. Tent Rental, says the goal of the purchase was to consolidate and significantly expand the company's space. The business was previously operating from a 20,858-square-foot warehouse/distribution building in Centre Park Industrial Park and two condominium units.

“We were really tired of moving and buying more space,” Boyle says. “Hopefully this will last us forever, but it should at least meet our needs for the next 10 years. We don't need all the warehouse space now, but we think with the economy, we are going to need it pretty shortly. Our business is picking up again, and we were doing pretty well during the recession.”

The company plans to remodel the building and office space and add loading docks in the back before relocating.

Joe Hembree of Hembree & Associates Inc. represented the seller and Carl Wise of Preferred Commercial Inc. represented the buyer.

The Boyle family sold two 1,950-square-foot flex space condominiums to the sellers of the larger building and land, R&J 7600 LLC and Matoaka Investments LLC, for $200,000.

The purchase entity, Boyle Ventures Inc., mortgaged the property to JPMorgan Chase Bank NA for two loans totaling $3.57 million.