Cold storage facility in Ybor City lands $39 million in financing
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: May 12, 2023

A speculative temperature-controlled warehouse development in Ybor City has landed construction financing as well as joint venture equity.

JLL Capital Markets said it has closed a $26.6 million construction loan and $13 million in joint venture equity for Tampa Cold Logistics. St. Louis-based Sansone Group is partnered with Miami-based Mandich Group LLC to build the cold storage facility, which will be 108,554 square feet.

As of mid-April, no tenants had been signed for the project, a Sansone spokesperson said.

JLL’s John Huguenard, Luis Castillo, Melissa Rose and Michael DiCosimo represented Sansone in the transactions. Stifel Bank provided a three-year, floating-rate loan. The joint venture equity partnership is with BentallGreenOak.

BGO is among the largest owners of cold storage real estate in the U.S.

“Due to the best-in-class sponsorship in Sansone, Mandich and BGO, alongside an infill Tampa location, we were able to build a strong market of lenders amidst a turbulent capital markets environment,” Rose said in a statement. “The demand for modernized cold storage space managed by skilled operators in this market is incredibly strong, substantiating speculative development.”

Tippman Group is the project’s general contractor.

“The exceptional access to major thoroughfares will provide users at the property with the ability to reach a population of 9.3 million people within a two-hour drive, which equates to 43% of Florida’s population,” Nick Sansone, principal at Sansone Group, said in a statement. “This is a tremendous advantage for the facility and positions us well to meet the demands of the rapidly growing cold storage market in Florida.”