Macy's sells off Gandy warehouse property — a prime redevelopment site — for $32 million
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jan 5, 2021

Long-struggling department store Macy's Inc. has sold off the South Tampa real estate that's home to a distribution center and one of its furniture gallery stores.

California-based LBA Realty paid $32 million for the property at 4130 W. Gandy Blvd. in a deal that closed in late December, according to Hillsborough County property records. Forethought Life Insurance Co. provided a $30.8 million mortgage for the transaction.

The property is 39 acres, according to county records, and the warehouse on the site is 670,000 square feet. It is a prime redevelopment site by any measure; that amount of acreage in an urban environment is a rarity, and it has frontage along the high-traffic Gandy Boulevard.

The Gandy corridor has seen an explosive amount of growth in recent years, in both commercial and residential real estate. The 52-acre, mixed-use Westshore Marina District is under construction just south of the intersection of Westshore and Gandy boulevards, driving further interest in the area. Publix Super Markets Inc. recently opened a new store at Gandy Boulevard and Manhattan avenue and is laying the groundwork to demolish and rebuild its store at Gandy and Himes.

Marketing materials from Cushman & Wakefield Inc., which represented Macy's in the sale to LBA, detail a conceptual mixed-use redevelopment that could include up to 900 multifamily units, retail and office space. Cushman bills the property as an "excellent opportunity to acquire a well-located industrial asset with strong redevelopment potential."

"The redevelopment would create an opportunity to fulfill a gap in the submarket for Class-A, mixed use space," according to Cushman's marketing materials.

A representative from LBA Realty did not respond to a request for comment. Cushman declined comment on the transaction. If a redevelopment is in the works, there's no clear time frame for such a project — Macy's (NYSE: M) told the Tampa Bay Business Journal on Tuesday that it has no plans to close Macy's Furniture Gallery.

"Macy’s Gandy Furniture Gallery will continue to operate under a lease with the new owner without any interruption of business," a spokeswoman for the department store wrote in an email. "Our colleagues at Macy’s Gandy Furniture Gallery look forward to continuing to serve its customers."