Port St. Lucie is again placing the former VGTI facility in Tradition on the market after a potential buyer of the property rescinded its offer.
RER Ventures notified the city at the end of November it was no longer interested in pursuing purchasing the property. The notice came during the 90-day due diligence period. A reason for the decision was not provided in the memo sent to the city.
Anyone who has ever been involved in a real estate transaction knows the “deal’s never done until the check clears,” Mayor Gregory Oravec told St. Lucie Voice, adding that it’s natural for those who supported the sale to RER to be disappointed.
“But don’t fret,” said the mayor, who believes the loss of RER Ventures as a buyer will give the city another opportunity to fulfill the vision for the facility – as an economic-development job creator and/or educational space.
“I think we have a chance to do that now,” Oravec said.
Had RER Ventures closed on the facility – now known as the Florida Center for Bio-Sciences – the sale could have been wrapped shortly after the first of the year.
Oravec added in a statement: “Rather than feeling disappointment, I would ask our citizens and our team to take heart and to recognize this turn of events for what it is – one of our greatest opportunities.
“The deal with RER was the highest credible offer; but it wasn’t the best possible one. Rather than selling the building to a real estate firm specializing in distressed assets, one that would likely gut the state-of-the-art building and flip it to local office users, the better outcome for our community’s long-term prosperity was always to use this one-of-a-kind asset to recruit major employers, a research institution and/or a place of higher learning. The good news is that with the Cleveland Clinic set to join our community and the continuing success of Tradition, there has probably never been a better time to make this happen.”
The 8-acre campus is located at 9801 SW Discovery Way; its 107,000-square-foot facility houses nine state-of-the-art laboratories, private offices, and conference and lecture spaces.
Now, the city is once again tapping Avison Young to market the campus.
Keith O’Donnell, principal at Avison Young, told St. Lucie Voice this week that the team is regrouping and coming up with a plan going forward. “We’re pulling it all together,” O’Donnell said.
While Port St. Lucie again waits to find a willing buyer, the city continues to carry the costs. Those costs include an annual debt service of $4.1 million and another $1.5 million annually for operating costs.
The city had hoped to find one buyer/developer to purchase the entire facility, but with RER’s decision not to pursue, that possibility looks meager, according to Pete Tesch, president of the Economic Development Council of St. Lucie County.
Despite the RER setback, Tesch said this could be a great opportunity for the city and various stakeholders to re-examine the marketing plan and explore what else could be done to interest a buyer.
Tesch suggested the city consider studying the facility to see if there are ways to segment the building to create possible laboratory suites. Doing so could give the city more flexibility in its marketing approach.
Allowing for multiple users could mean multiple buyers, each owning a portion of the facility. The former VGTI building could potentially be compartmentalized into lab condos, Tesch suggested.
He admitted that reconfiguring the building could also be a costly proposition. Such an undertaking would have to have study and analytics supporting the monetary investment. He recommends the city commission such a report to determine if segmenting the facility and selling off lab condos would make financial sense.
Tesch said it is “abundantly clear that the likelihood of a single user is remote.” It hasn’t happened and, unless a previously unknown entity makes itself known, it probably won’t happen.
Instead, Tesch believes the property could be sold to multiple second-stage medical, science and technology companies who want to call Tradition home and could tap into the growing medical field with Tradition Medical Center.
