Dallas partners buy Fort Myers industrial land

A Dallas-based partnership has acquired a 153-acre tract in Fort Myers that is zoned for a mix of industrial and commercial development, according to Lee County property records and other sources.

The partnership between Mabrey & Partners LLC and Traylor Bros. Inc., of Evansville, Ill., bought the property April 1 at Interstate 75 and Luckett Road for $7.25 million.

It could not be determined what Luckett Industrial LLC’s plans are for the property going forward. Neither Mabrey officials, Daniel Traylor, who is listed in state records as being a principal of Luckett Industrial, nor their brokers at Lee & Associates Inc. returned telephone calls for comment.

Based on county entitlements, however, the property could be developed with several buildings containing hundreds of thousands of square feet of office and industrial space for logistics firms and other distributors.

“New industrial space represents a natural fit for that area, and the City of Fort Myers has indicated that it wanted that type of development to occur on that site to spur jobs,” says Matt Stepan, a broker with Premier Commercial Inc. of Naples and Bonita Springs, who together with Andrew DeSalvo represented the seller in the transaction.

Seller Southland Investment Opportunities LLC, of Estero, had owned the property since September 2015, according to Lee County records.

Mabrey’s largest project to date is a $250 million, 950-home development in Dallas known as the Clement Ranch, on land that had once been owned by a Texas governor. The company began that master-planned community in 2016.

Traylor is a heavy contracting company with operations in bridge construction, tunnels and mining, according to its website.

“New industrial space seemed the most logical use for the site,” Stepan says. “It’s a really good opportunity for the buyer. There aren’t very many large tracts of land with interstate access in Southwest Florida at present that can accommodate larger users.”