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EDGE District pioneer sells 1st Avenue North property
Jonathan Daou, a major property owner in St. Petersburg’s EDGE District, has sold some of his holdings along 1st Avenue North.
The properties sold for a total of $12 million on Oct. 30, according to a deed filed Wednesday in Pinellas County.
The buyer, BPOZ 1000 First LLC in Greenwich, Connecticut, is managed by Brandon Lacoff, CEO and president of Belpointe, a private equity investment firm.
Neither Lacoff nor Daou responded to requests for comment.
Daou is president and creative director of Eastman Equity. He is credited with the revitalization and curation of the EDGE District, now considered one of the trendiest areas of St. Petersburg.
The sale involved six parcels held by five separate limited liability companies, all headed by Daou as president. According to information from the Pinellas County Property Appraiser’s office, the property involved in the sale included a 14,580-square-foot hotel at 936 1st Ave. N., a 4,000-square-foot office building at 954 1st Ave. N., and a 5,200-square-foot commercial structure at 956 1st Ave. N., as well as three vacant parcels of commercial land in the 900 and 1000 blocks of 1st Avenue North.
Belpointe is a family office with a wide range of services, including real estate. In 2019, the company launched Belpointe REIT, the first public Opportunity Zone-focused REIT to be registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In December 2019, Belpointe REIT acquired One Main Plaza Mall in downtown Sarasota. The purchase was the first step in the REIT’s investment strategy of developing urban multifamily communities in growing cities in the southeast, Lacoff said in a news release.
