Lake County’s Groveland area continues to see investment from big players in the industrial development market.

Just recently, a company led by media billionaire and developer Edmund Ansin paid $4 million for about 123 acres on the northwest corner of US Highway 27 and O’Brien Road, according to a deed filed in Lake County.

Marvin Puryear with SVN Saunders Ralston Dantzler Real Estate represented the selling entity, a company tied to real estate player and property investor Richard Bosserman.

Dave Lundberg with Lundberg Properties Inc. represented the buyer.

Ansin is active in both the broadcasting and real estate. His company, Sunbeam Television, owns WSVN-TV in Miami and WHDH-TV in Boston.

Meanwhile, real estate business is handled through his Sunbeam Development Corporation, which owns and manages a portfolio of commercial real estate properties primarily located in Indiana and Florida.

Developments include suburban office parks, industrial parks and shopping centers. According to the company’s website, Sunbeam will typically invest in large tracts of land in major growth areas.

In Florida, the company’s largest project is a 2,500 acre commerce park located near the Broward/Miami-Dade county line in Miramar called Miramar Park of Commerce.

Lundberg told GrowthSpotter that Sunbeam is active in Central Florida, and may either invest in this particular property or choose to develop it.

“It can go either way,” Lundberg said. For any development to take place on the land, the owners must first rezone the properties from its current Agricultural classification.

It currently features an Urban Medium Density Future Land Use, which allows residential developments at a maximum density of about seven dwelling units per acre, in addition to civic commercial and office uses.

Limited light industrial uses may only be allowed as a conditional use, unless permitted as an Economic Development Overlay District use, according to marketing material used by SVN Saunders.

Across O’Brien Road, about 40 acres are being planned to house a new residential development, Puryear said.

The Lake County site that recently traded hands features 2,740 square feet of frontage along US Highway 27, and is in close proximity to Florida’s Turnpike and State Road 19.

The property is located within the Lake County/Groveland Joint Planning Area, where other large industrial facilities are being planned.

Nearby, Kroger Co. and U.K.-based e-grocer Ocado are building a 375,000-square-foot customer fulfillment center at 7925 American Way that is estimated to cost $125 million to complete.

The area is also rumored to house a new Amazon distribution center. Seefried Industrial Properties, a regular developer for the e-commerce giant, is proposing to build 202,044-square-foot facility northwest of the Republic Drive and Independence Boulevard intersection within the Ford Commerce Park.

The company is behind building Amazon distribution centers in Lake Nona, as well as facilities in California, North Carolina and Alabama.

Source:  GrowthSpotter