Bridge Investment buys Tampa Commons offices

An affiliate of a Salt Lake City investment firm has acquired the 13-story Tampa Commons office building in the Westshore area of Tampa for $56.5 million, one of the largest office transactions in the region in a year pockmarked by COVID-19.

Bridge Office Fund Manager’s deal for the 253,922-square-foot building at 1 N. Dale Mabry Highway marks a return to the region’s office market for parent Bridge Investment Group: Three years ago, it sold the 19-story Fifth Third Center building in downtown Tampa for roughly $52.5 million. The company had acquired the 201 E. Kennedy Blvd. asset in mid-2014 for $47.25 million.

The purchase of the 253,922-square-foot building also represents Bridge Office’s first acquisition in more than six months, says Kelly Kuyendall, Bridge Investment’s director of asset management.

“The Westshore area, in particular, checks a lot of boxes for us,” Kuyendall says. “And we like the story of this building. It’s historically outperformed the market, so we think that it’s a safe bet.”

Bridge intends to rebrand the property by eliminating the Tampa Commons name and focusing instead on its address.

The 1 N. Dale Mabry building is currently 83% leased to tenants such as Travelers Insurance, Ideal Image and others. Bridge has retained CBRE’s Ryan Reynolds, John Heald and Jackson Kilcoyne to lease the property.

Bridge Office plans to invest roughly $4 million to install a fitness center and outdoor lawn games, awnings and seating, Kuyendall says.

Those upgrades come on top of the roughly $3 million that sellers Angelo Gordon & Co. and Atlanta Property Group spent.

Commercial real estate brokerage firm Eastdil Secured represented Angelo, Gordon and Atlanta Property Group in the sale of the 35-year-old building. That partnership acquired Tampa Commons in June 2017 for $43 million, property records show.

"When we purchased Tampa Commons as part of a portfolio, our business plan involved strategic capital improvements of around $3 million, and we completed them, along with some significant leasing," says C. Sheppard Dinos, managing partner of Atlanta Property Group. "So we'd successfully completed our business plan for that asset. Hopefully we set the property up for someone, in this case Bridge, to take it to the next evolution."

Kuyendall adds that the $500 million Midtown Tampa mixed-use project, slated for delivery in February, will likely heighten the area’s visibility.

“Midtown Tampa will be at a premium to us,” she says. “So we’re positioning ourselves as a value option for businesses coming out of COVID.”

Bridge Investment has been active here in sectors other than office. In July, the company paid $101.25 million to buy a pair of multifamily rental projects in Tampa and St. Petersburg.