Largest Tampa Office Complex Trades for $45M

NetPark Tampa Bay, a former shopping mall that became the largest office building in Tampa spanning nearly 1M SF, has been sold for a price that exceeded its last trade in 2005.

NetPark, located at 5701 E. Hillsborough Avenue in the East Lake-Orient Park neighborhood of Tampa, was purchased by New Jersey-based Saxum Real Estate Partners for $45M. The seller was Bluett Capital Realty, based in Sacramento.

According to CBRE, which represented the seller and their tenants-in-common ownership group, NetPark is the largest office property sold in the Southeast since 2022.

The 947K SF NetPark complex is located on a 99-acre site in the East Tampa/1-75 Corridor submarket, northeast of downtown Tampa and Port Tampa Bay in proximity to the confluence of I-4, I-75, I-275 and the Crosstown Expressway.

The property was 60% occupied at the time of sale by a tenant roster featuring a variety of public and private sector firms ranging from 1,250 SF to just under 150K SF, CBRE said in a release.

The East Lake Square Mall, which opened on the site as Tampa’s first regional mall in 1976, was converted into a two-story office complex in the 1990s. The property last sold in 2005 for $42M, according to a report in the Tampa Bay Times.

“Investors were drawn to NetPark due to its highly amenitized technology-focused office space that caters to a diverse tenancy, including Tampa’s growing presence of shared service operation centers,” said Dale Peterson, CBRE senior VP, in a statement.

Amenities at NetPark include an on-site dining hall, a fitness center, conference center, a day care facility and a HART bus transfer station.

The acquisition is Saxum’s first purchase in the Tampa Bay market.

“NetPark is a tremendous place to work with a campus and amenity set that differentiates itself amongst its competition. Saxum is excited to enter the Tampa market with scale,” said Ian Kukowski, Saxum vice president of acquisitions, in a statement.

According to its website, Saxum, based in Summit, NJ, has a portfolio valued at more than $2.5B, including cold storage facilities, industrial assets, 1,400 multifamily rental units and 4,000 student housing beds.

In April, a partnership of Atlanta-based Arcadia Cold Storage & Logistics and Saxum disclosed plans to build two cold storage facilities encompassing a total of 600K SF in metro Chicago.

Overall office vacancy in the Tampa Bay metro, which measured 17.2% in JLL’s Q1 2024 market report, has plateaued at that level for the past two years.