Spec mansion on Davis Island sells for full list price
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Feb 18, 2016

A speculative waterfront mansion on Davis Islands has sold for its full list price of nearly $6 million.

A local development group listed 556 Riviera Drive - a 7,600-square-foot West Indies-style mansion - for $5.995 million, and that's exactly what it sold for in a deal that closed Feb. 12, according to a Hillsborough County deed filed Tuesday. The buyer was a joint revocable living trust in care of Dennis A. Hase.

When the spec mansion broke ground in late 2014 - a 1960s ranch home was demolished to make way for it - the group, led by Majesty Title CEO Vincent Cassidy, estimated it would sell for between $4 million and $6 million.

"It's not going to be more than six," Cassidy said at the time, "but it could very well touch six if the market's hot."

It's the fifth spec mansion that Cassidy's group has built in Tampa. As with the previous homes, Hughes Construction was the general contractor, and Ed Gunning and Mary Pond of Smith and Associates were the listing agents.

For this property, the group paid $2.4 million for the lot and took out a $3.17 million mortgage from Bay Cities Bank. The investors earn returns of 10 percent to 15 percent, Cassidy has said.

The group has another spec mansion listed for sale, on Culbreath Isles.

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