by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
The Greenleaf Building downtown has been largely vacant for more than a year. That may soon change.
Brian McFadden, managing partner of Orlando-based Taurus Southern Investments, LLC., said this week that the firm will close on the Laura Street property Tuesday.
McFadden said the 12-story building, which for years served as the local hub for national law firm Foley & Lardner, will be converted into office condominiums.
Foley moved out of the building in June 2004 and quickly sold it to Allied Capital Corp., a Washington, D.C.-based investment firm, for approximately $4 million.
McFadden said the Greenleaf Building is Taurus’ first Jacksonville acquisition.
“We’ve been partners in other deals in the area, but we were always the bridesmaid,” McFadden said. “It was time for us to expand.”
And downtown, he said, was the obvious first step.
“And you know, part of the reason was because it was the place not to be for so long,” he said. “But it’s hard to ignore all that has happened there in recent years. The City has done a great job of turning downtown around to a point where we feel like we’re going to be on the front end of a really positive wave.
“We haven’t even engaged in any real marketing and we’ve already been having serious discussions about six floors.”
After next week’s closing, renovation efforts of the building will begin “right away,” he said.
“I know we’re going to be doing some substantial work on the elevators and the lobby,” McFadden said, “and obviously we’ll be doing the clean up work that goes with purchasing any historic property.”
But maintaining those historic elements will be a priority, he said.
“Well not only do we have to, we want to,” McFadden said of keeping the building’s historic integrity. “We’ve owned historic properties in the past in Orlando and we’ve always enjoyed having them because they present unique opportunities you can’t find elsewhere.
“We see them as having tremendous upside potential.”
Kevin Hyde, City Council president and a Foley partner, said he was glad to hear the building had sold to a party with big plans for it.
“That’s good news,” Hyde said. “When we were there I really enjoyed the building and I’ve always said I could see it functioning really well as office condos.”
Taurus Southern Investments is a subsidiary of Taurus Investment Holdings, LLC., a German-based real estate conglomerate founded in 1976. Since expanding into the American market three years later, Taurus has purchased and sold more than 10 million square feet of office, industrial, residential and hotel assets.
McFadden said he would ultimately like to see Taurus have a “substantial presence in Jacksonville and Tampa.”
“That’s the direction I see us moving,” he said. “It won’t be for some time, but eventually I see us having at least a property management office in Jacksonville.”