- October 5, 2024
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How sporting of you: Academy Sports + Outdoors has opened a new store in Fort Myers with plans for a second in Bradenton. The new 65,000-square-foot store is on 6 Mile Cypress Parkway just off Colonial Drive and about a mile from Top Golf. The Fort Myers store is of one of up to 17 the Houston retail chain plans to open this fiscal year. To date, it has opened seven and at least seven more have been announced. Among those is one at 7125 State Road 64 in Bradenton set to open the first week of November. Academy sells sporting goods and outdoor equipment including apparel, footwear, equipment and outdoor gear. The chain was founded in 1938 and currently has 293 stores in 19 states. The Bradenton store, in east Manatee County, will be its 18th in Florida. The company had $6.4 billion in sales in fiscal year 2022.
Age in place: Vi at Bentley Village in Naples has just finished a major renovation project that expands its skilled nursing facility and assisted living residences. With the work completed, all 84 rooms in the Bentley Care Center are single occupancy with private baths. These are on the second and third floors of the existing building and a recently added north wing. There are also new therapeutic areas, multipurpose spaces and activity areas. The project includes a 5,700-square-foot center as well, with state-of-the-art physical and occupational therapy equipment, private treatment rooms and an outdoor therapy courtyard. The 156-acre Vi at Bentley Village is on Retreat Drive off of Tamiami Trail near the Audubon Country Club. It is owned by Chicago-based Vi Living, which has spent $300 million on upgrades and additions to the community in the past 10 years.
Book it: The North Dale Mabry retail space occupied for nearly 30 years by Barnes & Noble has sold. The buyer is BayCare Health System, which paid $10.5 million for the 32,000-square-foot building and the five acres it sits on. The health care giant plans to use the new space to offer urgent care services a well outpatient imaging, outpatient laboratory services and space for specialists. The plan is to open in late 2026. Barnes & Noble closed the store at 11802 N. Dale Mabry Highway in Tampa’s Carrollwood neighborhood Aug. 21. According to a spokesperson for the book retailer, the property owner did not renew the lease. Rather than go away, though, the chain will open a new store in February about a mile north in a former Bed, Bath & Beyond space. The 35,931-square-foot space is in the Palms of Carrollwood shopping center at 13123 N. Dale Mabry Highway. It has been vacant for about a year.
Windfall: The owners of a Tampa apartment community have obtained $45.5 million in financing. The loan went to Boardwalk Holdings for “the lease-up and stabilization” of the Reserve at Temple Terrace just off Interstate 75 and Fowler Avenue. Ease Capital, a New York direct commercial mortgage lender, originated, structured and announced the three-year, full-term interest-only, non-recourse loan. The 10-building, 290-unit Reserve at Temple Terrace community was once a 146-unit student housing complex for the University of South Florida named Boardwalk at Morris Bridge. It was bought in 2021 by NorthEnd Equities, a Brooklyn company that shares an address with Boardwalk Holdings, for $31.4 million. Under the new owners, the property underwent a “significant transformation” and was turned into a traditional multifamily property. That transformation included gut renovations of the interiors and upgrades to the amenity offerings. In the six months since the renovations finished, the property is 45% occupied, Ease says in a statement. New York-based Ease works with borrowers nationwide on loans for multifamily and mixed-use multifamily properties.
Plaza suite: Fowler Plaza South, a shopping center in the Uptown district of Tampa, has sold. The buyer was an unidentified local investor who paid $12.6 million. The seller, New Jersey-based SJS Realty Management, paid $6 million for the center in 2000. Tampa-based Plaza Advisors’ Jim Michalak and Jeff Berkezchuk represented SJS and announced the sale. The 57,093-square-foot shopping center, at 2301 E. Fowler Ave. was 97% occupied at the time of the sale with a tenant roster that includes Dollar General, Champs, AT&T, Jimmy John’s, Foot Locker and Amscot. The property is located less than a half-mile west of the University of South Florida and across the street from Rithm at Uptown, the ongoing mixed-use redevelopment project taking place on the site of the former University Mall.
Floor it: Construction of the new Floor & Décor in Venice is nearly finished and plans are to hold a grand opening on Halloween. The Atlanta flooring and accessories retailer’s 80,000-square-foot store is at 4411 S. Tamiami Trail. That’s the site of the Basketville store, which closed in 2008 after 54 years. It was the chain’s last store outside its hometown, according to a 2009 obituary of company founder Frank Wilson in a Vermont newspaper. Today, the property is owned by an LLC with a Putney, Vermont address. The LLC bought the company from Tamiami Basket Center, also of Vermont, for $1.69 million in 2016. Floor & Décor signed a lease for the 6.91-property in July 2023, according to the Sarasota commercial real estate firm Loyd Robbins & Co. Robbins says the lease is for 15 years with options to renew. Floor & Decor was founded in 2000 in Atlanta and calls itself a multichannel specialty retailer and commercial flooring distributor. As of June 27, it operates 230 warehouse-format stores and five design studios across 36 states. Of those, nine are along the Gulf Coast.
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