Mixed-use Ringling Square in downtown Sarasota sold to New England investor
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Apr 14, 2015

A New England group has acquired downtown Sarasota's Ringling Square for $11.5 million. Ringling Square is a five-story office and retail building with an adjacent five-story parking garage, built in 2005. Including the garage, Ringling Square totals 124,527 square feet, for a sales price that breaks down to $92 per square foot. That figure is below replacement cost - it would cost significantly more than $90 per square foot to build the same building today.

Dennis Dahm, a commercial broker at Michael Saunders & Co., represented the buyer and seller in the transaction. Dahm declined to identify the buyer, saying only that it was an investment group based in New England.

The seller was the original developer, Ringling Square LLC, which is comprised of principals Gary Sligar and Doug Tibbetts, according to state and county records. A 2006 story in The (Sarasota) Herald-Tribune pegged development costs at $10 million.

Office space is in high demand in Sarasota, driven by a number of downtown residential developments planned or under construction. The tenant demand is also driving investor demand. When the Herald-Tribune's building hit the market in mid-March, the early marketing campaign generated a lot of interest, one of its listing brokers said.

Ashley Gurbal Kritzer is a reporter for the Tampa Bay Business Journal.