Atlanta Developer Buys Builder's Square Asset

DAYTONA BEACH, FL-At $6.5 million, the former 150,000-sf Builder’s Square retail and garden property at 2400 W. International Speedway Blvd. here wasn’t moving after a year on the market. But when J. Brett Houston, president of Miami-based Resource Real Estate Group Inc. submitted a back-up contract for $6 million, the deal closed in 10 days. Houston acted as the court-appointed receiver for the property.

Retail Planning Corp., an Atlanta-based developer, purchased the Builder’s Square asset for $54.55 per sf, based on the 110,000-sf of the main retail area. Factoring in the 40,000-sf adjoining garden sales site, the price equates to $40 per sf, below replacement cost, area construction industry estimators tell GlobeSt.com.

Houston tells GlobeSt.com the 15-acre property was built as a big-box retail structure for Builder’s Square in 1994. The site is across the street from the Daytona International Speedway, home of the Daytona 500 NASCAR race. Retail Planning expects to redevelop the site with retail uses.

The seller was LaSalle Bank National of Chicago, acting as trustee for commercial mortgage pass-through certificate series 1997-D5. Orix Capital Markets LLC of Dallas acted as special servicer in the transaction.

Houston says the transaction was the 12th receivership he has handled in the last 10 years for similar types of commercial property foreclosures involving banks or commercial mortgage bond obligation pools, a category in which Resource Real Estate Group specializes.