Places This Week: Winn-Dixie, Euclid School House

A Clearwater retail real estate firm goes shopping in St. Pete, an historic property trades hands and Pinellas commissioners award the first round of Penny for Pinellas funds for affordable housing developments.

Here’s this week’s roundup of local real estate deals.

Paradise bags a St. Pete grocer

The Winn-Dixie Supermarket at 3327 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N. in St. Petersburg has a new owner.

PV-SP FivePoints LLC, a company associated with Paradise Ventures in Safety Harbor, bought the 46,000-square-foot grocery store for $6.2 million on Jan. 13, according to Pinellas County property records. The sale included about a quarter-acre parcel south of the store that’s used for parking.

Paradise Ventures, a retail real estate firm, has completed hundreds of projects totaling more than 5 million square feet of retail space for clients including Publix, Walgreens, Tractor Supply, Starbucks, Lowe’s, Wawa and Aldi, the company’s website says.

Paradise Ventures did not respond to phone calls and an email asking about its intentions for the property.

The seller was Five Points Land Co., a St. Petersburg firm with ties to the Bond family, who were noted hoteliers in downtown St. Petersburg.

The deed included some restive covenants, including a prohibition against using the property as a place of worship, an abortion clinic, a tattoo or massage parlor, an adult bookstore or other uses that might be considered environmental risks, as long as the adjacent property is owned by the Bond family.

Historic property

Sight Properties in Tampa has sold the Euclid School House at 1090 10th St. N. to another Tampa firm for $2.95 million. The sale closed on Dec. 31, according to Pinellas County property records.

Before the sale, Sight Properties repurposed the historic school into a multifamily development, turning the classrooms into 16 one- and two-bedroom apartments. Sight Properties is headed by developer Michael Mincberg and worked on the project in partnership with Matt Joyce, a former Tampa Bay Rays outfielder, 83 Degrees reported in 2017.

The buyer, Euclid School Apartments LLC, is led by Eric Meister, who is owner and principal at Cornerstone Solutions Group and Mainstay Construction Services. Meister did not respond to a request for comment on his plans for the property.

Euclid School House (Photo credit: Sight Properties)

Renovated apartments

Waterside Village, a 102-unit apartment property in St. Petersburg, has traded hands.

The property at 3600 49th Ave. N. was sold on Dec. 17 for $12 million.

The apartments were built in the 1970s and ’80s and were completely renovated last year, according to Connect Florida, a commercial real estate website.

Marcus & Millichap arranged the sale. Casey Babb, Luis Baez and Shawn Rupp in Marcus & Millichap’s Tampa office  represented both the seller, a private investor, and the buyer, also a private investor, Connect Florida said.

Penny funds

The Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday approved Penny for Pinellas funding for four affordable housing program applications. Approved projects are:

• Skyway Lofts by Blue Sky Communities in the Skyway Marina District in St. Petersburg, in line for $700,000. The project, which broke ground in September, includes 65 multi-family affordable apartment units, all for tenants whose household income is less than 80 percent of the area median income, or AMI.

A rendering of SkyWay Lofts at 3900 34th St. S.

• The Shores by Richman Group,  at the southwest corner of 26th Avenue and 31st Street South in St. Pete, will get $750,000. The project is new construction of 51 apartment units restricted to households with no more than 60 percent of AMI.

• New Northeast by Stock Development at 5475 3rd Lane N. in St. Petersburg will get $4 million. The project is new construction of a 415 unit mixed-income apartment community including 59 units restricted to households with 80 percent or less of AMI and 66 units restricted to households between 81 percent and 120 percent of AMI.

• Washington Avenue Apartments by Southport in Clearwater will get $3.4 million for land acquisition and $2.22 million for capital improvement construction costs. The project is new construction of a 171 unit mixed-income apartment community including 18 affordable units restricted to households with 80 percent or less of area median income, 49 units restricted to households between 81 percent and 120 percent of AMI and 114 units restricted to households between 101 percent and 120 percent of AMI.

The next round of applications for Penny for Pinellas affordable housing funds opens Feb. 1. Details are here.

Across the Bay

Real estate development firm BTI Partners has secured a $92 million construction loan for the first phase of Marina Pointe, a waterfront three-tower development in the Westshore Marina District.

It’s one of the largest condo construction loans in Tampa, a news release said.

Bank OZK is the lender. Eric McGlynn, managing director of Walker & Dunlop in Miami, arranged the construction financing.

The Westshore Marina District is a 52-acre mixed-use community in Tampa, south of Gandy Boulevard near the intersection with Westshore Boulevard, and across Tampa Bay from St. Petersburg.

A rendering of Marina Pointe