CLEARWATER -- The Sunset Point 19 shopping center, home to such stores as Publix, Old Navy, Bed Bath & Beyond and Barnes & Noble, has been sold to a publicly traded realty investment group for nearly $28-million.

The buyer, Houston-based Weingarten Realty Investors, does not plan any major changes to the bustling center on the southwest corner of U.S. 19 and Sunset Point Road, said Jim Michalak of Cushman & Wakefield, which brokered the sale.

The property attracted more than a dozen bidders and ultimately fetched about $103 per square foot, significantly above normal rates for retail space in the area and a testament to the profitability of the stores in the shopping center, Michalak said.

"In this market, that's excellent," Michalak said. "It's a killer center in a prominent location."

The center has 273,000 square feet of shopping space, or nearly the size of five football fields. Among the anchor stores are Publix, Barnes & Noble, LensCrafters, The Sports Authority, Bed Bath & Beyond, Comp USA, Staples, Old Navy and Eckerd.

Many of the anchor stores in the shopping center are among the best-performing locations in their respective chains, said Michalak, senior director of the financial services group for Cushman & Wakefield.

"It's the most dominant community center in all of Pinellas County," he said. "It probably rivals most of the better Tampa ones as well."

Community centers are shopping centers that are smaller than enclosed malls but larger than neighborhood strip centers, Michalak explained. About 214,000 people live within 5 miles of the Sunset Point center, he said. And the average household income of those people is $54,000 per year, he said.

The Sunset Point center is the first major acquisition by Weingarten Realty Investors in the Tampa Bay market, but its seventh purchase in Florida since December 1999.

Weingarten Realty Investors is a real estate investment trust with 281 income-producing properties in 17 states in the southern half of the United States, including 225 neighborhood and community shopping centers. The company trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol WRI.

Executives with Weingarten Realty did not return phone calls for comment on Wednesday.

The Sunset Point 19 property was sold by a limited partnership headed by a wealthy Belgian man who prefers to keep his identity confidential, Michalak said. County records list the former owner of the property as Sunset Associates Ltd., which bought the property in 1987 for nearly $5-million, according to officials in the Pinellas County Property Appraiser's Office.

Florida corporation records list Atlanta-based Ronus Inc. as the general partner of Sunset Associates Ltd. Ronus Inc. is a real estate firm that is the U.S. arm of a European company.

Michalak began marketing the property in June. The owners had decided to cash out after maximizing the property's value, he said.

"Basically they took the property to the highest level possible," he said. "It has a fantastic tenant lineup and strong rent. There wasn't really anywhere to go with it."

The shopping center was built in the 1970s but was completely renovated in 1998, including the installation of a new facade and roofs.

The property was highly sought after, Michalak said. It drew intense interest from several advisers to pension funds and other institutional clients. That's a good sign for the local market, he said, as well as for Florida in general, which boasts rapid population and job growth.

"These types of assets don't come available very often," Michalak said.

- Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Staff writer Robert Farley can be reached at (727) 445-4185 or farley@sptimes.com.

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