After Amazon retreat, Sunlake business center in Pasco is repositioned as flex space
By Alexis Muellner
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Nov 3, 2023

A poster child of the Great Recession impact, the prime site envisioned for years as a sprawling corporate campus of T. Rowe Price is now 360,000 square feet of finished flex space.

Market analysis by its new owner, Atlanta-based Stonemont Financial Group, showed that it was a missing product line for Pasco. It acquired the site along S.R. 54 in 2022, now Sunlake @54 Business Center.

“We're promoting the heck out of it because there's no other flex space available,” the Pasco EDC’s Tom Ryan said. ComPark 75 in nearby Wesley Chapel is leased out, he said.

The Baltimore financial services firm paid $13.5 million for 94 acres off State Road 54 in 2009, with 1,600 jobs envisioned. Later, Amazon came back with plans and entitlements for the site to build a new delivery station in partnership with Atlanta-based Stonemont Financial Group, Ryan said.

When Amazon began pulling back on its plans nationally, the site was back in play. It’s listed as Class A industrial, so it has modern amenities, higher ceilings, sprinkler systems, water, gas and electricity.

“It would be attractive to some life insurance companies,” Ryan said.

How it's leased will further define if it remains Class A. Appropriate users equal higher-paying jobs.

“If it ends up being a giant gymnastics center, then no, that's not quite right,” he said. "That's part of the problem we had in Pasco. We used to see much of our warehouse space go to gymnastics and cheerleading.”

Stonemont is a private real estate investment firm specializing in industrial development, acquisitions and net lease investments nationally.