$548 million hospital to open in Manatee County

Naples/Fort Myers/Charlotte

Miami money: Miami developer Mast Capital has obtained $65 million in construction financing for a 320-unit Fort Myers apartment complex. The money came from Centerbridge Partners, which served as agent for MassMutual Life Insurance Company. JLL Capital Markets represented Mast and its partner on the deal, BLG Capital Advisors from Chicago. The complex is at 13370 N. Cleveland Ave. The garden style community is already under construction on a 14.5-acre piece of property that was once the site of the Hancock Bridge Square Plaza shopping center. The developer paid $12.8 million for the property in 2022. The development will include three- and four-story buildings in a pedestrian-friendly setting. Mast is an aggressive developer with a portfolio that includes residential, hospitality and commercial properties. This includes more than 4,000 residential units in South Florida, as well as in the Fort Myers and Tampa markets.

Feds lend a hand: Lee County commissioners approved up to $200 million for affordable housing projects last week. It is for the Affordable Housing Development New Construction Program, which will provide grants for the development and preservation of affordable housing units. According to the county, the program will make up to $150 million available for new construction or the purchase and rehab of multifamily units and up to $50 million for the construction of new single-family units. The minimum funding for new construction development will be $4 million with a max award of $20 million. Qualifying projects must have 51% multifamily units occupied by income-eligible households. And 100% of all newly built single-family houses must be sold to income-eligible households. The funding is open to private nonprofit or for-profit developers as well as local governments and public housing authorities. The money for the program comes from Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery funds. The county says it was allocated $1.1 billion by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development following Hurricane Ian.

Tampa/St. Petersburg/Pasco/Polk

Courtesy image

House hunters: A 10-property residential portfolio is up for sale in Polk County. The houses are mostly in midtown Lakeland with two in Bartow. The package also includes a vacant lot. According to the listing from SVN Saunders Ralston Dantzler, the houses, which total 12,453 square feet, are 100% leased month-to-month with 30-day outs. The “vast majority of rents are currently underperforming,” though, the listing states. The listing says that current rents total $11,500 but pro forma market estimates say the rents could go as high at $16,000. The portfolio is listed at $1.68 million.The firm is also marketing a five-house portfolio of single-family residences operating as short term rentals in Lakeland. That portfolio will run you $2.5 million but comes with 500 5-star reviews and the title of super host.

Military maneuvers: A Clearwater based electrical manufacturing company is opening an office in St. Petersburg. Technology Research Corp. has signed a lease for 9,675 square feet in the Baypoint Commerce Center. The lease is for 10 years and for space in the center’s Gadsden Building, where the company will take up half of the second floor. The Baypoint Commerce Center is a 15-building, 700,000-square-foot office park just outside downtown St. Pete. It was built in 1971 and bought by the real estate investment firm The Fell Organization in 2011. New York-based Fell announced the lease. Technology Research was founded in 1981 and, according to its website, has “been directly involved in the design, development and qualification of power electronics designed to monitor power quality and protect the integrity of power produced on all of the generator sets specified by the Project Manager’s Office for Mobile Electric Power located at Fort Belvoir,” an Virginia Army base. The company specializes in the design, development, production and testing of electrical products for use in the power generation field.

Sarasota/Manatee

Image courtesy of Ian Black Real Estate

Art depot: A 10,000-square-foot building in Sarasota’s Limelight District is up for sale. The property is at 925 N. Lime Ave. and, according to a listing from Ian Black Real Estate, has retail frontage on Lime Avenue and parking on both Lime and Apricot Avenues. The asking price is $3.3 million, down from $3.65 million. The Sarasota commercial real estate firm says the building is fully leased with four tenants — covering “the spectrum of the creative arts as well as the University of South Florida” — taking 2,500 square feet each. The building, light blue and easily recognizable, was renovated a year ago. County property records show the building is owned by Latitude Twenty-Seven Properties, which paid $1.31 million for it in early 2022. The Limelight District is near downtown — with 17th Street and Fruitville Road to the north and south, U.S. 301 and Tuttle Avenue to the west and east — and made up over 100 businesses run by artists, makers, restaurateurs and entertainers.

Medical arts: BayCare Health System has revealed the plans for its new $548 million Manatee County hospital. BayCare Hospital Manatee, as it will be known, will be the county’s first nonprofit hospital and the first north of the Manatee River, according to a statement. The Clearwater-based nonprofit health care system giant is scheduled to start construction on the 45,000-square-foot medical building on Moccasin Wallow Road in October. The facility will have 154 beds but is designed to expand to 207 when needed. There will be capacity for more space as the community grows, BayCare says in the news release. Services will include general, orthopedic and specialty surgery; urology; gastroenterology; cardiology; diagnostic and interventional imaging; emergency care; obstetrics; and neonatology. It will also have an outpatient lab as well as outpatient imaging and other diagnostic services. BayCare first announced the hospital in 2022 and has spent two years on zoning and site plans. In the meantime, it opened a medical office about a mile away in Palmetto. BayCare currently operates 16 hospitals and “hundreds of other” offices in Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas and Polk counties. According to its 2022 Form posted on the nonprofit research company Candid GuideStar’s website, its net assets in the most recent fiscal year were $7.8 billion.

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