Lakewood Ranch Market Square, Summerfield strip centers sell for $5.8M

Lakewood Ranch strip centers sell for $5.8M

LAKEWOOD RANCH -- A Tampa real estate investment firm with a taste for shopping malls has snapped up two fully-leased strip centers in two busy East Manatee retail centers.

On Sept. 24, B&L Investments paid $5.8 million to buy the Shoppes at Summerfield and the Shoppes of Market Square in Lakewood Ranch. The two strip centers, built in the early 2000s, are fully leased to a total of 13 retail tenants.

B&L purchased the centers from their original developer, Paradise Ventures of Safety Harbor. The deal, brokered from the seller's end by CBRE's Tampa office, was partly financed through a $3.85 million mortgage extended by Genworth Life Insurance Company.

Located at 11513 Palmbrush Trail, 12,600-square-foot the Shoppes at Summerfield is home to six tenants AAA Auto Club, Subway, The UPS Store, and Supercuts. The Shoppes at Market Square, at 8325 Market St., fits seven tenants into 11,000 square feet. Tenants include Pizza Hut, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, and Get Fit Fuel.

Paradise purchased its former Summerfield property from Lakewood Ranch master developer Schroeder-Manatee Ranch as vacant land in 2001. The shopping center was built in 2004, according to county property records.

Market Square property also started as a land purchase from SMR. Paradise built the mall in 2002. In all, Paradise paid $2.07 million for the land.

B&L has made several mall purchases in Florida over the past few years. In 2013, the company bought the second phase of the Riverview Bell Plaza in Riverview for $2.19 million. Last year, the company paid $3.99 million for the Walks at Highwood Preserve II strip center in Tampa.

Mark Shellabarger, a CBRE senior vice president who represented the seller in the transaction, said the buyer was attracted to the Lakewood Ranch strip centers based on their locations and the continued growth in community.

"Both centers feature a stable mix of national and local tenants and are located across from high-performing Publix-anchored shopping centers," he said in a statement.

Strip centers in and near Lakewood Ranch have been selling at a fair pace over the past two years. Between November 2014 and February 2015, grocer Publix purchased two centers at Lakewood Walk and Lakewood Ranch Town Center that its store anchors, paying a total of $43.8 million.

Other area malls that have sold since late 2013 include Lake Osprey Plaza, Ranch Lake Plaza and River Club Plaza.

Matt M. Johnson, Herald business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7027 or on Twitter@MattAtBradenton.

This story was originally published October 6, 2015 at 12:03 PM with the headline "Lakewood Ranch Market Square, Summerfield strip centers sell for $5.8M ."