- April 11, 2025
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The owners of the recently completed Fort Myers apartment complex The Orchard at Portofino Vineyards have obtained a $65 bridge loan on the property. A portion of the proceeds, $49.5 million, will go toward paying of a construction loan, says Berkadia, which secured and announced the financing for Prime Group of Hollywood. MF1 provided the two-year, floating-rate loan. The Orchard is a 264-unit garden style apartment complex at 9920 Portofino Vineyards Dive, just off Three Oaks Parkway. The complex was built last year and received its temporary certificate of occupancy last month. It is currently 28% occupied. The community is the second phase of a 70-acre master-planned community Prime Group is developing. When complete, it will include apartments, townhouses and single-family residences for rent. The first phase, The Grove at Portofino Vineyards, was finished in 2020 and has 312 garden-style apartments. The Woodlands at Portofino Vineyards, the final phase, will be made up of 202 townhouses and single-family homes for rent and is expected to be delivered later this year. Berkadia’s Brad Williamson, Kyle Ryan, Mitch Sinberg, Scott Wadler and Matt Robbins secured the loan for Prime.
The Florida Cabinet and Gov. Ron DeSantis have approved $84.9 million in funding to preserve 19,846 acres across seven properties, including two in Charlotte and Collier counties. The properties are part of the state’s Wildlife Corridor, a network of 18 million acres of connected lands and waters. Of that acreage, 10 million is permanently protected. The Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation says this most recent funding closes “critical gaps while safeguarding the state's wildlife, water resources and working lands.” In Collier, 2,577 acres were bought within the Caloosahatchee Big Cypress Corridor for $18 million from Tamiami Citrus. The property helps to build connectivity between the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and Big Cypress National Preserve to Dinner Island Wildlife Management Area, says the foundation. In Charlotte, a conservation easement for 3,722 acres was bought from Ryals Citrus and Cattle, a primarily family-run a cow-calf operation, for $13.2 million. Of that, the foundation says, $6.6 million may be provided through a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. The property is adjacent to another property bought in 2023. It protects the Prairie Creek, a headwater of the Peace River. In addition to the Collier and Charlotte properties, land was preserved in Osceola, Putnam, Hendry and Lake counties.
The Tampa healthcare REIT Sila Realty Trust has bought a 57-bed rehabilitation hospital in Tennessee. The company paid $35.12 million for the facility. The 70,000-square-foot Knoxville Rehabilitation Hospital was built in 2021 and sits on the 109-acre Tennova Health Park, Sila says in a statement. Sila President and CEO Michael Seton says in the statement that this is the company’s first purchase in Tennessee and “underscores our focus on building additional scale in the Sun Belt market.” The “pure play” net lease health care REIT owns 135 real estate properties and two undeveloped land parcels in 65 markets across the U.S. Last month Sila announced it had secured a $600 million line of credit that it may be able to increase to $1.5 billion.
Texas-based Fisher Investments is relocating its Tampa office and expanding into a 321,999-square-foot space at Renaissance Center, a Tampa office complex with over a half-dozen buildings. Fisher Investments will occupy three buildings on campus, which will bring the seven-building, 840,000-square-foot campus to 98% leased, according to a statement from Vision Properties, the firm that owns and operates the Renaissance Center. Vision Properties has been adding to the Renaissance Center complex and is currently marketing Renaissance Center 8 for leasing, which will be 200,000 square feet once completed. Fisher Investments was founded by Ken Fisher in 1979 and now manages nearly $300 billion in assets across 15 offices globally, according to its website.
The state of Florida has bought four environmentally sensitive properties within the Lemon Bay Aquatic Preserve on Sandpiper Key in southern Sarasota County. The properties are in Englewood between Tom Adams Bridge and Beach Road Bridge. According to Scott Polisar, a broker for SunQuest Real Estate in North Port, who brokered the sale, the state paid $850,000 for the properties totaling 35 acres — 18.56 acres are mostly mangroves and 16.83 acres are submerged land. Polisar says in an email that the estuarine system stretches roughly 13 miles south of Placida, almost reaching Venice. It is separated from the gulf by two barrier islands: Little Gasparilla Island and Manasota Key. The land supports mangroves, seagrass beds, oyster reefs, tidal marshes and wildlife including manatees, dolphins, sea turtles and a variety of birds.
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