New beginnings

In luring one of the region's premier residential real estate services firms to relocate its downtown Sarasota sales office to its ground floor, the owner of the 13-story Ellis Building is embarking on a long-anticipated reinvention of the Main Street tower.

Benderson Development Co. is planning a series of improvements at the 1605 Main St. building in the wake of brokerage Michael Saunders & Co.'s decision earlier this month to lease 15,200 square feet most recently occupied by Bank of America.

The improvements will include a new façade, ground-floor lobby, aesthetic pavers and parking enhancements. The building also is expected to be renamed to reflect Wells Fargo Advisors' tenancy there by the time the renovation is completed in February 2016.

“The ground floor leases are a big piece of the overall puzzle, and we feel it's now time to fulfill the vision we've had to make what we think will be the best building in downtown Sarasota,” said Larry Fineberg, Benderson's executive director of industrial, office and warehouse properties.

In addition to Saunders — whose 25-year lease represents the largest ground-floor downtown rental deal in more than a decade — Synovus Bank, Orange Theory Fitness and Crop, an organic juicer, will occupy the building's ground floor.

Benderson intends to time many of the improvements to coincide with the city construction of a traffic roundabout at Main Street and Orange Avenue slated to begin next month and end sometime in November.

But it is Saunders' move that is expected to garner the most attention to the 44-year-old building. Its 10,000-square-foot downtown Sarasota sales office has been located in company-owned space at 1801 Main St. since 1987.

As part of the shift, Saunders intends to consolidate more than 80 residential sales agents, the firm's commercial brokerage and property management divisions, as well as mortgage, title and rental representatives.

“The building met so many of our objectives for visibility and the ability to grow,” says Drayton Saunders, the company's president.

“It's a true opportunity for synergy at a prime intersection,” says founder and CEO Michael Saunders. “We're going to have really smart, sophisticated space: It'll be very contemporary and clean, with lots of light and functionality and high technology to accommodate our high-touch agents.”

For Benderson, the spate of recent ground-floor deals have reinvigorated a decade-old plan to renovate the 131,000-square-foot tower.

After buying the Ellis Building in May 2005 for $13.5 million, Benderson a year later proposed adding hundreds of condominium units and hotel rooms, 1,000 parking spaces and more than 86,000 square feet of commercial and retail space to the 3.4-acre site.

That $145 million plan faltered, however, when the region slipped into recession the following year and the building's main tenant, Bank of America, downsized and eventually relocated its operation to the corner of U.S. 301 and Fruitville Road.

Today, the Ellis Building is anchored by S-One Holdings Corp., the former LexJet Enterprises, and other businesses.

“It's a different vision now than the one we had 10 years ago, and in large part we made the decision a few years ago to simply take what we had and make it great,” Fineberg says.

“We talked to a lot of different retailers and restaurants for the ground floor, but what it came down to with Michael Saunders was they had a well-known name and a vision for the space that was consistent with our vision,” Fineberg added.

- K.L. McQuaid