The lord of the Tampa Bay flea markets has acquired a huge chunk of undeveloped property at the emerging commercial hub of Pinellas County at a distressed sale price.

The aw-shucks owner of the Mustang, Wagon Wheel and Gunn Highway Flea Markets, Hardy Huntley bought 185 acres of the Gateway Center business park that lenders had taken back from embattled office and industrial developer Grady Pridgen.

Such deep discount sales of commercial property are expected to become more common as thawing credit markets collide with slumping rents and land prices.

Huntley declined to reveal the cash price he paid Pridgen's lender, Cap Mark Bank of Utah. But he said it was a "fraction" of the more than $20 million value carried on the tax rolls. Cap Mark took back the property from Pridgen after the developer stopped making payments on $25 million in two loans.

"I don't have plans to do anything with the property other than sell it eventually," said Huntley, a soft-spoken 64-year-old Pinellas Park landowner whose portfolio includes 450 acres of undeveloped commercial property from Citrus County south to Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. "This is a long-term investment."

Huntley has been an active collector and seller of land for development for years, including the sites of several Wal-Mart stores. This purchase, however, increases his holdings by a quarter and is his largest.

"It's a huge deal for one of the biggest undeveloped pieces left anywhere in Pinellas, much less right in the commercial heart," said Don Lombardi, vice president of investment land with Grubb & Ellis in Tampa. "We're seeing a lot of big money looking for distressed properties lenders are desperate to get off their books."

Huntley's Gateway Center land includes commercial frontage on heavily traveled U.S. 19 and Gandy Boulevard. It was a major chunk of a more than 700-acre industrial and business park that was assembled, permitted and outfitted with roads and utilities in the late 1980s by Lomas & Nettleton, a Texas mortgage giant that went out of business.

Pridgen tried to revive the sprawling mixed-use project a few years ago and built industrial facilities on the nearby Sod Farm that he renamed La Entrada for Valpak and Halkey-Roberts Inc.

The land Huntley acquired, all of it in Pinellas Park, is west of 28th Street and butts up to the southern boundary of the Mainlands.

Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8252.