Tampabay: Glazer paid $22.8-million for mall

Glazer paid $22.8-million for mall

The team bought the old Tampa Bay Center mall, and plans to build a gleaming new practice facility there.

By JEFF TESTERMAN, Times Staff Writer

TAMPA -- Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Malcolm Glazer and his family paid $22.8-million for the shuttered Tampa Bay Center mall, an 80-acre site where the team plans to build a state-of-the-art practice facility, according to a cash deal closed Dec. 31.

Closing papers recorded last week show the Glazers paid a slight premium for the mall property, spending about $1-million more than the $21.78-million market value set by Hillsborough Property Appraiser Rob Turner.

In all, the Glazers bought nine parcels and agreed to assume the long-term lease of a tenth, an 81/2-acre slice of parking lot owned by nearby Jesuit High School. Jesuit uses lease proceeds for its scholarship fund.

The Bucs have not disclosed plans for development on the mall property, and aren't likely to until after the Super Bowl.

But the Glazer Family Foundation Web site describes plans for a three-story, 150,000-square-foot facility, a strength training center, three practice fields, outdoor jogging paths and offices with a satellite link to the National Football League headquarters in New York. The construction price tag for the facility could approach $30-million, said Tampa Sports Authority executive director Henry Saavedra. But county taxpayers already have agreed to help the Glazers pick up the tab.

As part of a negotiated deal in 1996 to use part of a 30-year, half-cent sales tax to build Raymond James Stadium, $12-million was set aside to defray the cost of the Bucs' practice facility.

Since tax dollars are being used, the title to the facility will be transferred to the Tampa Sports Authority upon completion. The facility will remain on the tax rolls since its purpose will be private, not public, Saavedra said.

What else the Glazers will do with the abandoned mall property is unclear.

"It's up to their imagination," Saavedra said. "They could put anything there from a McDonald's to a hotel. I imagine they have a plan. People with deep pockets tend to look 20 years down the road at their investments."

David Mechanik, a land use lawyer who sits on the Sports Authority, said a practice facility on the mall property could mesh well with commercial development.

"They've got tremendous synergy with that land right next to the stadium," Mechanik said. "The training facility would be a less intensive use, especially as far as traffic, and would entitle (the Glazers) to plenty of commercial use."

The Glazers could devote a healthy chunk of the mall property to parking and use a portion of current parking areas around the stadium for commercial development, Saavedra said.

The Bucs must keep 3,000 spaces, about two-thirds of the total, around Raymond James Stadium to provide parking for the New York Yankees' Legends Field. So the Glazers could opt to replace about 1,500 spaces with commercial development.

Conceivably, the Glazers could build a hotel with suites that overlook the stadium with the sort of views some apartment dwellers enjoy from rooftops across from Chicago's Wrigley Field.

"That's possible," Saavedra said. "It's up to the owners' whim."

Closing documents show the Tampa Bay Center Property was sold by the Rouse Co., a Maryland developer, to Tampa Bay Mall Limited Partnership, a company created on Dec. 23. The corporation's general partner's officers are Malcolm Glazer, his six children -- Edward, Kevin, Avram, Joel, Bryan and Darcie -- and William C. Sondericker, a longtime employee of First Allied Corp., Glazer's holding company.

The Glazers dispatched football and administrative staff to scout the best NFL and college training sites in the U.S. and intend to relay findings to architects to "create the NFL's best training facility," the Glazer Family Foundation Web site says.

Currently, the Bucs train at One Buc Place, an antiquated building and complex of mobile homes on land near International Plaza.

The team attempted this summer to secure the right to build a new facility on a 70-acre wilderness tract off Morris Bridge Road, northeast of the University of South Florida. But Hillsborough County commissioners voted 5-2 in September to deny a rezoning for the site because of environmental concerns.

The Tampa Bay Center, one of Tampa's premier retail centers in the 1970s and '80s, fell victim to department store bankruptcy and competition from newer, suburban malls. The center lost its last tenant last fall when Sears moved to WestShore Plaza.

The center became available about Dec. 1, when former mall developer and former San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. abandoned an option to buy the center and redevelop the property with "big box" department stores, specialty shops and restaurants.

-- Jeff Testerman can be reached at (813) 226-3422 or by e-mail at testerman@sptimes.com