Liberty Property sells off Tampa office park occupied by Capital One, WellCare in $108M deal
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Feb 18, 2016

Liberty Property Trust (NYSE: LRY) has sold off a suburban Tampa office park for $108 million.

Liberty, based near Philadelphia, sold the 573,053-square-foot Renaissance Center to Vision Properties. The price breaks down to $188 per square foot.

The property includes a development pad with an active site permit for another 111,000-square-foot building, Vision Properties said. The existing buildings in Renaissance Center - along Henderson Road, north of Tampa International Airport - are 100 percent leased. WellCare Health Plans Inc. (NYSE: WCG) and Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF) are among the tenants in the park.

Cushman & Wakefield of Florida Inc.'s Florida capital markets group - Mike Davis, Michael Lerner and Rick Brugge - represented Liberty in the transaction.

Renaissance Center is situated on 71 acres with more than 3,000 structured parking spots and an amenity packaged that includes a a baseball field, a health and fitness center, a tennis and volleyball court, Internet café‚ coffee bar and food court.

The new building won't break ground until an anchor tenant is secured - likely someone willing to commit to about 50 percent of the building - but Vision Properties said in a statement that it expects to sign a deal and break ground within 12 months.

CBRE Group Inc. (NYSE: CBG) will be managing the property for Renaissance.

"The Tampa office market has continued to outperform many other office markets around the country with approximately 2.25 million rentable square feet of net absorption since 2011," Anthony Arena, director of acquisitions for Vision Properties, said in a statement. "This can be attributed to the talented labor pool, large tax incentive packages, and low cost of business. The Tampa MSA added 32,900 new jobs in the last 12 months ending June 2015 and 109,300 jobs in the last five years.”

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