Investor building 178,000-square-foot Lakewood Ranch industrial property

Naples/Fort Myers/Charlotte

Fun with financing: The developers behind a 280-unit Cape Coral apartment community have obtained $41.66 million in financing. The loan was originated by Greystone, a commercial real estate finance company. The complex is The Palms at Cape Coral, which was built in 2022 by New York-based Young Development. According to Greystone, which announced the financing, the fixed rate Fannie Mae loan has a 10-year term and 30-year amortization with five years of interest-only payments. The garden-style apartment community is made up of five buildings with one-, two- and three-bedroom units. Young was founded in 1984 and owns apartments, as well as other properties, mostly in New York. In Florida, it owns The Palms property, which opened Nov. 30, 2022, and a second complex, The Oaks at Cape Coral at 31 Pine Island Road, which is “coming soon” according to the company’s website. 

Tampa/St. Petersburg/ Pasco/Polk

image courtesy of Premier Sotheby’s International Realty

Just Wright: A new house inspired by the architectural master Frank Lloyd Wright has hit the market in Polk County. The house at 180 Brigham Road near U.S Hwy 17 is listed for $3.67 million. It sits on a four-acre gated waterfront property. According to the listing brokerage, Premier Sotheby’s International Realty’s Winter Park office, the house has 3,659 square feet of “modern, innovative and open-concept” interior living space, and a total area of 5,587 square feet. There are four bedrooms and four full bathrooms and “a smooth finish steel trowel stucco exterior, concrete floating steps and landscaping that lends to a Zen garden-like setting.” According to the American Institute of Architects, Wright “believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture.” The organization, in 1991, named him “the greatest American architect of all time.” 

Who's on first: A California real estate firm has bought 40 acres in Pasco County and hired a Houston homebuilder to develop 150 townhouses on the Wesley Chapel site. Simple, right? Not quite. The deal looks straightforward in a news release but gets a little more complicated when public records are consulted. First the players: The buyer of the 40 acres is PCCP, a Los Angeles commercial real estate debt and equity capital company. The developer it hired is Commercial Builders, a subsidiary of David Weekley Homes from Houston. According to Pasco property records, PCCP bought the land for $6.35 million Jan. 19. The deed was recorded at 3:39 p.m. that day. The previous owner that sold it was David Weekley Homes. It paid $2.25 million for the land on the same day — Jan. 19 — with its deed recorded at 9:37 a.m. While big money deals are obviously complicated and often require creativity, a spokesperson for PCCP, which issued the release, did not respond to a question about why it was structured this way. What we do know is this: the community will include a mix of 84 two-bedroom townhouses with a one-car garages and 66 three-bedroom townhouses with a two-car garages. Units will range from 1,419 square feet to 1,705 square feet. Construction is expected to begin in April.

Sarasota/Manatee

Industrial knowhow: A real estate investment firm has bought 16 acres in Lakewood Ranch and will use it to develop an industrial site. Richland Capital Holdings paid $5.5 million for the property on Gatewood Drive near the intersection of Lakewood Ranch Boulevard. It is on the Manatee County side of the master-planned community. The company says it plans to build two light industrial buildings totaling 178,000 square feet on the site. Construction is set to begin later this year and take about two years to complete. Richland Capital has offices in California and Florida, with Tampa its East Coast headquarters. The investment firm is currently building out more than 1 million square feet of industrial space and 1,500 multifamily units across the country. That includes an 80,000-square-foot business park in Polk County that will be completed in March.

Apartments galore: A nine-acre parcel in Bradenton has been sold and will be turned into apartments. The property is on El Conquistador Parkway. A sale price was not disclosed. Indiana developer Thompson Thrift plans to build a 279-unit apartment complex named The Stadler on the land. Thompson says the community will made up of one-, two- and three-bedroom units, at sizes up to 1,445 square feet. The developer already has a solid foothold in the state with 13 properties, six of those between Ellenton and Cape Coral. The new Bradenton apartment complex will be in Lake Flores, a 1,300-acre master-planned community which will include 6,500 homes as well as retail, office space and a 19-acre man-made lake. Tampa-based Eshenbaugh Land Co. represented the seller and announced the deal.

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