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Places This Week: St. Pete’s Playhouse Theatre, Hawkins home, Tyrone office, Pinellas Park warehouse
An old theater property on Central Avenue in St. Petersburg will get a new use. A St. Pete Beach home that belonged to the founder of Crown Auto has a new owner. A church sells an office building in the Tyrone area. Private Label Skin Care, a fast-growing Dunedin company, is expanding with the purchase of a warehouse in Pinellas Park.
Here’s this week’s roundup of local real estate transactions.
Central Avenue theater
The former Playhouse Theatre at 1850 Central Ave. has hosted everything from vaudeville to adult movies during its 96 years of existence. Now, the vacant theater and surrounding property are poised to become home to medical offices.
The theater, along with a former nightclub venue on 1833 1st Ave. S. and two vacant commercial lots just west of the buildings, sold for $2.7 million on June 1, a deed filed in Pinellas County said.
Photo credit: Colliers
The buyer was Penncap LLC, a company associated with Dr. Reid Graves and Dr. Nicholas Laryngakis who are physicians at St. Pete Urology. They want to build their own medical office on the site and are working with the city to see how much, if any, of the existing building can be preserved, said PaulaClair Smith, managing director at Colliers. Although the building was constructed in 1925, it doesn’t have an historic designation, she said.
Smith and Christine Daly, Colliers sales associate, represented the seller, a private investment group.
The property totals about 26,000 square feet and includes two billboards that are visible from Interstate 275 just a few feet away. The vacant lots have special use parking permits for Tropicana Field.
A call to Graves was not immediately returned.
St. Pete Beach home
The estate of the late Dwayne Hawkins has sold his St. Pete Beach home for $5.2 million.
Hawkins, the founder and CEO of Crown Automotive Group, died in December.
The home, at 2911 Sunset Way, was built in 1936, according to the Pinellas County property appraiser, and included 4,645 square feet of living space in two buildings. It last sold in 2001 for $2.8 million.
The buyers were listed as Fatima and Michael Chren.
Tyrone office
Private investors in Tampa have bought an office building at 6735 Crosswinds Dr. N. in St. Petersburg, just a block away from Tyrone Square. The property formerly was owned by BridgePoint Church, which separately has a church building at 6690 Crosswinds Dr. N., as well as campuses in downtown St. Petersburg and in Seminole.
The buyers paid $2.25 million on June 1 for the 11,361-square-foot, one-story office building, a deed filed in Pinellas County said. The buyers were listed as Park & Belcher LLC, which acquired a 63.63 percent interest in the property; Airport Bayway Inc., with 25.31 percent; and Isla Goldenrod LLC, with 11.06 percent.
6735 Crosswinds Dr. N. (Photo credit: Loopnet)
Pinellas Park warehouse
Private Label Skin Care, a Dunedin company that manufactures natural and organic skin care and hair care products for the cosmetics industry, is expanding. The company bought an industrial property at 10900 U.S. Highway 19 N. for $4.725 million on May 24, according to Pinellas County property records.
The company was founded in 2011 by Chris and Gayle Estey, according to its website. Private Label moved into its Dunedin headquarters less than a year ago, said Lynn Posyton, vice president of customer acquisition and business development. “We’ve been growing by leaps and bounds, and when Chris saw the [Pinellas Park] property was available, he put in an offer,” Posyton said.
The 60,000-square-foot building has about 16,000 square feet of office space and just over 44,000 square feet of warehouse space, according to the Pinellas County property appraiser. The expansion will allow Private Label to add more jobs, ranging from executive level to manufacturing and warehousing positions, Posyton said.
The property previously was owned by a company headed by Gary Peltz, president of Peltz Shoes, and was a warehouse for the retailer.
More deals
An entity associated with Hyperion Munitions in Largo bought the property at 8601 Somerset Dr., including a 71,000-square-foot light manufacturing facility. The buyer, 8601 Somerset LLC, paid $3.55 million in a deal that closed May 24, according to Pinellas property records. 8601 Somerset is headed by Dane Thomas, who is CEO of Hyperion, an ammunition manufacturing company. The seller was Workman Properties. The facility at one time was home to Granutec, which manufactured, packaged and distributed generic and private label medications, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Another industrial property, this one in Pinellas Park, sold for $3 million on May 27. The property, at 12290 U.S. Highway 19 N., includes six buildings constructed between 1971 and 1988 and a total of 28,000 square feet, Pinellas property records show. The seller was Clearwater Industrial Partners, associated with Southwood Development in Atlanta. The buyer was DFA LLC in Henderson, Nevada. That entity shares an address with Xtreme Manufacturing in Henderson, which manufactures heavy equipment and construction machinery.
A 23-unit Largo apartment complex sold for $3.35 million on May 28. The seller was Morada Holdings LLC-Century Oaks in Largo and the buyer was Berkeley 5417 LLC, a family trust in Lombard, Illinois. The sale included two, two-story buildings at 263 14th St. NW as well as a single-family home at 269 14th St. NW, Pinellas property records said.
