Prominent downtown Sarasota site listed for sale

SARASOTA — A prime spot of commercial real estate in downtown Sarasota, at the corner of U.S. 301 and Main Street, has been put up for sale.

The site, 1993 Main Street, is part of Main Plaza. The owners, a partnership of local investors and entrepreneurs under the name BBC Main Street, initially acquired all of Main Plaza for $18.1 million in 2015. BBC Main Street sold 8.6 acres of the roughly 10-acre site, at 1991 Main Street, in December for $20 million to a Connecticut firm now building apartments there.

BBC Main Street kept the remaining portion — which contains the Regal Cinemas’ Hollywood 11 movie theater, a bank and a pizzeria — with plans to hold onto it as landlords, says Jesse Biter, one-third of the partnership. The movie theatre, which has scaled down to 11 theaters from 20, is also less than three years into a lease extension that lasts through 2029. But with the pandemic crushing the cinema industry and the partners having other business and commercial real estate interests, BBC Main Street recently decided to list the second portion. The other partners in BBC are Eric Baird and David Chessler.

“It really needs someone with deep pockets to invest there in the property and take it advantage of the opportunity zone,” says Biter. “And that’s just not us right now. Someone with a big vision can do something really nice there.”

While the new listing, brokered by Kevin Robbins of Harry E. Robbins Associates Inc.  doesn’t have an asking price, Biter tells the Business Observer they are seeking around $19.5 million for the site.

The listing from Robbins, which calls the spot the “most visible corner in downtown Sarasota,” states the site is zoned for 10 stories and 144 feet of height, and uses include hotel, general office, medical office, restaurants, retail, grocery store and more.

The site, with the late 2019 sale, is also busy: the buyer of the other portion, Greenwich, Conn.-based Belpointe REIT Inc., has been doing demolition work there for several weeks. The private equity company was formed in 2019 to develop properties in federally designated Opportunity Zones, which includes Main Plaza and allows developers to defer capital gains and taxes for a decade on approved projects.  Belpointe is planning a pair of buildings containing 418 market-rate apartments and 50,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and restaurant space on the site, according to its website.