Texas company pays $13.75 million for former Donzi property in Manatee

Builders FirstSource, a Texas buildings supply company, has bought a 9.88-acre parcel of property in Manatee County that was once the site of Donzi Marine and plans to use the property to expand its operations.

The company paid $13.75 million for the industrial site at 7110 21st St. in the city’s Whitfield Estates neighborhood, less than a mile from U.S. 301, according to Harry E. Robbins Associates. The commercial real estate firm represented Builders FirstSource.

The site was first developed in 1964 by Donzi, which stayed on the property for about 46 year until it moved to North Carolina in 2010 and eliminated 40 jobs in the process.

The three-building industrial site, which had been on the market for about two years, was bought by Rodney Dessberg five years later. Dessberg renovated two manufacturing buildings totaling 130,877 square feet and added a third. That 10,000-square-foot building was for office space, according to Robbins.

The property is currently zoned for heavy manufacturing, and Builders FirstSource plans for it to be the site of its expanded operations and a distribution center.

Builders FirstSource was founded in 1998. It has more than 550 distribution and manufacturing locations in 42 states, including 39 in Florida.

Its net sales fell 31.6% to $3.9 billion in the first quarter of this year according to its most recent earnings statement released in May.