Naples, Fort Myers and Charlotte
Two Meatballs in the Kitchen, a popular eatery in Fort Myers and Cape Coral, is opening a new restaurant in Naples. The location is at 9010 Bellaire Bay Drive, which was previously occupied by The Warehouse Cuisine & Cocktails. According to LQ Commercial Real Estate Services, which brokered the deal, Two Meatballs’ move is part of a multilayered transaction that includes a sale of the property, a new lease and the transfer of the previous restaurant’s furniture, fixtures and equipment. The property was bought by Naples-based SmithCorp Realty, which signed a lease with Two Meatballs. LQ then sold the furniture, fixtures and equipment to Two Meatballs “ensuring a smooth handover from the previous owner/operator.” LQ did not disclose the terms of the deal, but Collier County records show SmithCorp paid $2.9 million for the building. The space is 5,400 square feet and sits on 0.94-acres just off Immokalee Road and Collier Boulevard. LQ says in a statement that Two Meatballs will open in the next six months. The restaurant’s two current locations are on Salrose Lane in Fort Myers and Cape Coral Parkway in Cape Coral. The transaction was brokered by LQ’s Frank Kupiec and Adam Palmer.
Tampa, St. Petersburg, Pasco and Polk
Minnesota-developer Ryan Cos. has finished construction of the new IFF Citrus Innovation Center at Florida Polytechnic University. The Lakeland center was built for International Flavors and Fragrances Inc., a New York-based food, beverage, scent, health, biosciences and sensorial experiences company. The building is a 30,000-square-foot, single-story research and development hub that houses sensory and experience venues, research labs, processing and analytical departments, a fully equipped citrus garden and amenities for hosting visitors and events. The company will use the center to support global citrus research and development as well as research in citrus-related scents and flavors. Ryan says the center’s “signature ribbon-like structure is inspired by scent-mapping techniques, emulating how fragrances move through the air.” The center was built as part of private-public partnership between the Lakeland university and the company. When the project was announced in 2022, the university said in a statement that IFF would finance the facility. Florida Polytechnic said at the time that “as the occupant of the new building, IFF anticipates providing internships and job opportunities for Florida Poly students, funding and collaborating on faculty research, sponsoring senior capstone projects and supporting academic programs.”
The 64.8-acre property that for decades was the home of HSN is up for sale. CBRE has listed the site at 1 HSN Drive in St. Petersburg but did not share an asking price. The property is being sold after it was announced that HSN’s parent company, former competitor QVC Group, will be closing the St. Petersburg corporate office and re-structuring its operations in Pennsylvania. It is laying off 730 employees as part of the process. Home Shopping Network was founded in St. Pete in 1982 by Roy Speer and Lowell “Bud” Paxson. It started off as a radio call-in shopping program in 1977 called the Suncoast Bargaineers before moving to cable television in the early 1980s. By 1985, it was being carried nationally and had 75,000 regular customers, according to an entry on the company on Encyclopedia.com. And it kept growing. According to Forbes, it had 8.1 million active customers by the end of 2023. The company was purchased in 2017 by Liberty Interactive Corporation, at the time the parent company of QVC.
Sarasota and Manatee
Faith Baptist Church in Sarasota has sold a portion of its land to Red Apple Development, a Fort Lauderdale developer of charter schools. Sarasota County records show the property, 8751 Fruitville Road, sold for $3.5 million. The church bought it in 1996 for $374,900, property records show. Dave Anderson, Faith Baptist’s pastor, says in an email that what sold was 11 acres at the front of the property. The church will remain at its current location on the north 11 acres. “By deed restriction,” Anderson writes, the school has to be built on the side of the property leaving the middle open so the church can be seen from Fruitville Road. The Classical Academy, a private school, is already on the property but is moving. The Sarasota County Planning Commission at a Dec. 5 meeting unanimously approved Red Apple’s request to build two classroom buildings, an early learning center, a playground and an amphitheater at the 8751 Fruitville Road site.
Sarasota County Commissioners agreed last week on the terms of a proposed agreement that will allow developer Hi Hat Ranch access through county-owned land to Bee Ridge Road in return for about $15 million in road improvements and more than $3 million in right-of-way elsewhere along Fruitville Road. The agreement, for a project east of Interstate 75, was approved 3-2 during a commission workshop, according to the Sarasota Observer, a sister paper of the Business Observer. The basics of the agreement are:
- Hi Hat will donate 10 acres to 17 acres of Hi Hat right of way along the southern side of Fruitville Road so the road can be eventually widened. The county values that land at nearly $3.6 million. The developer will not be responsible for the actual widening work.
- Hi Hat and the county split equally the cost of widening the two-lane section of Bee Ridge Road from the Bent Tree entrance to the Lorraine Road roundabout. That split will be roughly $14 million each.
- Hi Hat will pay the full price to widen the Lorraine Road roundabout to four lanes, at a cost of about $1 million.
- And Hi Hat will be responsible for building a road that extends Bee Ridge from the Lorraine Road roundabout, past several county facilities and Rothenbach Park to the site of its proposed residential village.
In total, High Hat’s responsibilities in the deal total about $18.6 million versus the $360,000 the county gives up in allowing the developer access to county-owned land east of Lorraine Road. Hi Hat owns about 10,000 acres west of Lorraine Road and between Fruitville and Clark roads. On June 9, 2021, County Commissioners approved a proposal allowing the developer to build about 3,000 homes on some 2,100 acres…