Investment group poised to buy 264 acres from abbey

ST. LEO -- An Atlanta investment group is scheduled this week to buy a 264-acre parcel held by the Order of St. Benedict and Saint Leo Abbey near Interstate 75 and State Road 52 for more than $7-million, an abbey official confirmed Tuesday.

Father Jim Tingerthal said the land for decades supported the abbey through farming. Now, with farming fading from the abbey's role, the sale will create a fund that can continue to support retired monks, ministry efforts, the abbey and the order as a whole through investments, he said.

Tingerthal, the head of the abbey, said the sale is scheduled to close Thursday with an Atlanta investment group headed by Kiran Shailendra and several doctors.

Tingerthal said the land has been the abbey's for about 100 years. Until about 25 years ago, the abbey farmed it, either growing citrus or other crops and raising dairy cattle. In recent years, the abbey has leased it as range land.

Money from the sale, Tingerthal said, will be handled conservatively.

"You're not going to see a buying spree," he said. "It becomes sort of a trust."

Shailendra did not return repeated telephone calls to his office over the past two weeks. The voice mailbox at his office Tuesday was full.

But Pasco County records show Shailendra and affiliated investors have been buying up land on the southeast corner of SR 52 and I-75 in the past year. Since April, the group has bought about 600 acres from the McKendree family, spending about $4.3-million.

But the buyers also indicated they are in no hurry to move ahead with a project, granting one seller, Minnie McKendree, 75, a right to live on part of the land for the rest of her life.

Tingerthal said it was his understanding the buyers did not have immediate plans, rather it was being bought as an investment.

In Pasco County, real estate brokers Lewis Abraham and Bill Nye composed the sale, Tingerthal said.

Abraham said at more than $27,000 per acre, the sale represents the highest price paid for undeveloped land in east Pasco, and it effectively sews up all of the available land around the intersection of I-75 and SR 52.

Development on the property and the adjacent McKendree property is probably six or more years away, Abraham said. The site could be used for virtually any kind of project, but most likely would be suited for a regional shopping mall, he said.

Ten miles south, developers have jockeyed in the past year over property near the State Road 56 intersection, and Tennessee-based mall developer CBL & Associates Inc., has been rumored to be inquiring about land near the McKendree and abbey property.

The abbey property sits just west of the 2,000-acre Cannon Ranch property, purchased for $7-million in 1999 and slated for a golf course and up to 6,700 homes, stores and condominiums.There has been no action on the development for two years.

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