This prime piece of downtown property sells. So what’s coming next?

Often referred to as the old Checker’s site, the 1.3 acres of now vacant land at 115 Manatee Ave. W. has sold, but what may eventually be built there may remain a bit of a mystery in the short term.

Paradise Ventures acquired the property — to the east of the Manatee County School District headquarters and to the south of the old Bradenton Herald site where new luxury apartments are now under construction — Nov. 2 at a yet undisclosed price. The last assessment valued the land at $984,000.

Checker’s closed down in 2007 and had leased the property from the school district, which at the time had discussed turning the property into additional parking. The school district sold the land in January of 2014 for $1.4 million.

There hasn’t been a lot of activity on what is considered to be a prime piece of real estate on the corner of Manatee Avenue West and First Street since then. In August of 2016, the city of Bradenton shot down a proposal from Thorntons, which wanted to build a service station on the site.

Prior to Paradise Ventures buying the land, it was owned by Bradenton 14 LLC, which had compiled code violations on the property for not maintaining it. Earlier this year, Bradenton 14 LLC asked the city to relieve it of outstanding fines and the city agreed, knowing another developer was looking at the property.

The city was unaware of the purchase until notified by the Bradenton Herald, but Planning and Community Development Director Catherine Hartley said she is looking forward to seeing what the new owner brings forward. The city has been hopeful a developer would build medical offices on the site.

Paradise Ventures builds a multitude of projects, including offices, restaurants like Bonefish, and Publix shopping plazas — 52 of them — and many other projects. The company is currently slated to build the new Panera Bread location at 6351 Manatee Ave. W.

According to their website, the company also is actively marketing 3.4 acres to potential tenants at 6921 14th St. W.

Brad Karns, Paradise Ventures project manager, said he has recently had a couple of brief and informal conversations with the city regarding the Manatee Avenue site, but nothing official.

“We were looking at the site for three to four months before purchasing it about a month ago,” Karns said. “What makes it challenging is the city’s form base codes, which has very specific guidelines, but ultimately it’s all market driven and the project will depend on what kind of tenants fit the project.”

Karns said it’s too early to provide even conceptual ideas at this point, but he has interest from various companies that like the location.

“It’s just brainstorming right now,” Karns said. “As soon as we get a little further down the road, we’ll bring forward a few concepts to the city and work through it from there. We are going to redevelop the property, but it’s too early in the process to provide details.”

Karns said there is no intention to let the property sit idle and some proposals may come forward in as few as a couple of months.

Developers typically develop a concept to see if it can be done and approved before purchasing property. Karns said Paradise Ventures operates a little differently than most.

“We have a different mentality,” he said. “We find good dirt and find something to do with it.”

Paradise Ventures, based in Safety Harbor, has more than 30 years of experience and has developed more than 5 million square feet of retail space for major corporations. They have been active in Manatee County for some time.

They built the Shoppes at Summerfield in Lakewood Ranch in the early 2000s. Paradise Ventures sold it in 2015 for $5.8 million.

This story was originally published November 20, 2018 at 2:10 PM.