76-Year-Old Retail Landmark on Auction Block

EUSTIS, FL-The vacant 76-year-old landmark Ferran’s Department Store building, once a retail beacon in this north Lake County city of 16,000 permanent residents, heads for the public auction block March 14 after failing twice as a restaurant site in the past four years. Eustis is 30 miles northwest of Downtown Orlando.

Co-owners Mike and Becky Alberson and Bill and Beth Compton can refuse all offers if the price isn’t what they’re looking for, according to Higginbotham Auctioneers of Lakeland which will be conducting the four-hour sale.

The property has been vacant since April 2001 when restaurateurs Gary and Tracy Webster called it quits after their 300-seat Ferran’s Moonlight Grill operation couldn’t produce the required customer volume. The Websters had leased the premises since January 2000. The Albersons and the Comptons had operated the restaurant from 1998 to December 1999.