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Tampa's Centro sold for $16M

By JANET ZINK
Published December 23, 2006

TAMPA - Centro Ybor, the debt-ridden movie and shopping plaza in the heart of the city's historic old Latin district, was purchased Friday by a Chicago company.

M&J Wilkow closed on a deal to buy Centro Ybor from BVT, a German investment fund.

The price: about $16-million for the property, said Jim Michalak, a real estate broker who represented the seller.

Officials with the buyer could not be reached Friday.

"They're investigating various alternatives to retail," Michalak said of the new owners.

There's a strong chance that some of the movie theaters will be turned into condos or office space, he said.

One portion of the deal involved buying out the Wachovia mortgage. The deal also calls for the new owners to reimburse the city for a loan from the Housing and Urban Development Department once the project reaches a certain level of profitability - but when is not certain.

"It could take five years; it could take 20," Michalak said. "When there's cash flow, the city will get its share."

Centro Ybor opened in 2001 with hopes that it would jump-start redevelopment in Ybor City. It now holds a movie theater, a comedy club, restaurants and retail outlets.

City officials kicked in a $9-million federally backed loan and a parking garage to make the $49-million project happen. But Centro Ybor didn't attract the expected crowds, and in 2004, the city stepped in to bail out developers by taking over payments on the federal loan.

That has cost taxpayers about $750,000 a year and will continue to do so until about 2014 unless the fortunes of the project change dramatically.

Earlier this year, two development partners in Centro Ybor sold their interest in the 211,000-square-foot project to BVT.

Sembler Co., which also developed BayWalk in St. Petersburg, and Steiner + Associates, an Ohio firm behind CocoWalk in Miami, each sold its 25 percent interest in Centro Ybor to BVT.

"No one came out as a winner," Michalak said of the original investors.

[Last modified December 23, 2006, 00:20:23]