by Bailey White
Staff Writer
The Barnett National Bank Building at 112 W. Adams St. is now for sale. For Lease signs on the building changed to For Sale signs Friday, offering a visual stimulus to those looking to invest in downtown real estate.
“We’ve had the lease sign on the building for the past 18-24 months,” said Duke Addison, president of Addison Commercial Real Estate, the company handling the sale. “We were open to offers to purchase the property before, but now we’re switching gears and changing our focus.”
Addison said his firm will now concentrate on the sale of the 1926 building, which is owned by 112 West Adams Street Realty.
“But we would still consider a lease,” he said.
The 150,000 square-foot building comes with a $4.5 million asking price.
“For that, you get the building at $30 a foot,” said Addison, adding that the building’s history makes it stand out among other downtown properties.
“It was contracted by the same company that built Madison Square Garden, and it was the tallest building in the state of Florida when it was first built,” he said.
Since the building has been on the market, Addison said he has heard from a number of prospective buyers and tenants with a variety of ideas for what to do with the building.
“There are a lot of different degrees of uses available,” he said. “I had one investor looking at it for an office or extended hotel concept. And another was looking at the possibility of turning it into apartments.”
Addison said the building would work well as a mixed-use facility and that “it would make a lot of sense for apartments or lofts based on the construction and the way the floor boards are laid out.”
Currently, the building is 15 percent occupied, with the Auchter Company the largest tenant.
Addison believes the successful renovations of the nearby property at 100 N. Laura St. speaks well of the potential the Barnett building has to offer.
“It’s an old building and some work needs to be done,” he said. “But it’s an attractive building for an outside investor looking to come in or for someone local to take advantage.”