10 Manatee, Sarasota mobile, RV parks change hands

MANATEE -- The $1.68 billion sale of one of the largest owners of mobile home and RV parks in the nation will bring a new owner to 10 Manatee and Sarasota parks in early July.

Publicly traded Sun Communities of Southfield, Mich., announced this week it has agreed to buy all issued and outstanding shares of common stock of Carefree Communities, a real estate investment trust that owns 103 mobile home and RV parks in Florida, California and Ontario.

Local mobile home parks owned by Carefree include Southern Pines, Palm Village and Vista Del Lago in Manatee County and Bahia Vista and Sara Lake in Sarasota County.

Its local RV parks are at Ellenton Gardens, Vista Del Lago, Horseshoe Cove and Pleasant Lake in Manatee County and Sun-N-Fun in Sarasota County.

In all, Carefee owns 35 mobile home parks and 39 RV parks in Florida.

Sun Communities acquires 27,544 total sites comprised of 9,829 developed manufactured housing sites and 17,725 RV sites in the deal. It also gets approximately 396 manufactured housing sites and approximately 2,586 additional RV sites suitable for development.

During a conference call Tuesday, Sun Communities CEO Gary Shiffman said the deal makes his company the largest owner of mobile home parks in the United States.

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

This story was originally published March 25, 2016 at 11:11 PM with the headline "10 Manatee, Sarasota mobile, RV parks change hands ."