Fires shut down construction at Sunseeker Resort

Naples/Fort Myers

The hits keep on coming: After shutting down construction first because of the pandemic and then because of Hurricane Ian, developers of the Sunseeker Resort Charlotte Harbor were forced to stop again Thursday, Feb. 16. 

This time the cause was fire. In a three-sentence statement, a spokesperson for Sunseeker says “there were three minimal fires on site, and the cause is currently under investigation by the fire department.” The fires caused “minimal to no damage and construction will resume tomorrow morning as scheduled.” 

Sunseeker is the $618 million resort being built by Allegiant Travel Co. in Port Charlotte. The resort was expected to open early this year, but was pushed back to the fall after Ian damaged the site and forced the company to replace several cranes. When complete, the resort will have 785 rooms, two pools, a spa and salon, an adults-only rooftop retreat, 60,000 square feet of meeting space, a harbor walk and an 18-hole golf course.

And the winner is: Lennar Homes has bought a 40-acre piece of land in North Fort Myers. The home builder paid $2.65 million for property at 9710 Bayshore Road. The deal was brokered by LSI Cos., which is not totally a surprise given that the industry research firm CoStar has named three people at the firm as Power Broker Quarterly Deal winners. Justin Thibaut, Alexis North and Hunter Ward topped the list of winners for the market, Top Sale, and Top Leasing Deals. CoStar ranks the winner by the top deals executed every quarter based on price and square footage.

Tampa/St. Petersburg

A room with a view: The DoubleTree Rocky Point hotel in Tampa has sold for $75.9 million. According to Hillsborough County property records, the buyer was Tampa Hotel Operating Company, an LLC belonging to Oliver Cos., a Minnesota-based hotel management and development company. The property's previous owner paid $34.75 million for the hotel in 2018. Rocky Point is a neighborhood sitting right on the water in Tampa and is connected to Clearwater by the Courtney Campbell Causeway. The waterfront DoubleTree was built in 1986 according to county records. A room with a king sized bed and a view of the water the first weekend in March will run you about $418 per night, according to Hilton’s website.

Movin’ on up: Greystar Real Estate Partners, the global commercial real estate firm, is moving into Midtown Tampa. The company has signed a lease for 6,150 square feet of space in the two-year-old development. 

Greystar already has a presence in Midtown. It manages Novel, the apartment complex on the property. Greystar’s space will be in the Loft at Midtown Tampa, the three-story, 72,000-square-foot boutique building. With this lease, The Loft is fully leased and Midtown reaches 98% occupancy. Midtown is the 23-acre, 1.8-million-square-foot, $1 billion multiuse development on North Dale Mabry Highway. The online staffing company Kforce moved its headquarters into about 22,232 square feet in the development last year and Tampa Electric is taking 17 floors of new tower under construction.

Déjà vu all over again: Another Walgreens has changed hands. This one is at 311 Memorial Blvd. in Lakeland. The buyer was National Retail Properties, which paid $4.23 million for the store. The Orlando-based real estate investment firm recently bought another Walgreens store at 705 N. Pebble Beach Blvd. in Sun City, paying $5.192 million. This brings to five the number of Walgreen Co. stores that have sold in recent weeks. Though it’s still unclear if this is the normal course of business or if the chain is shedding property for financial reasons. The public relations department has declined several requests for comment.

Sarasota/Manatee

Fresh start: Sarasota is one of the top places in the country to relocate a company to. So says a study from Boca Raton-based corporate relocation consultants The Boyd Co. The national study looked at the trends in how people work, state tax structures, operating costs and quality of life issues in bigger cities with large office concentration. What it came up with is that in the modern world of hybrid work and cost cutting, Sarasota is a top location for companies to consider moving their corporate headquarters to. That’s because of the state’s tax structure, lifestyle amenities and operating costs. 

But when it comes to landing a corporate whale, there is a lot of competition. Especially from a place like Minden, Nevada, near Lake Tahoe, which offers similar benefits to Sarasota and is not far from Northern California, where people are fleeing the cities.

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