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SunTrust office tower in Pelican Bay sells in $17.5 million deal

A long-held office tower in Pelican Bay has changed hands, marking one of the largest commercial sales of its kind in Naples this year.

A long-held office tower in Pelican Bay has changed hands, marking one of the largest commercial sales of its kind in Naples this year.

The seven-story SunTrust Building, off U.S. 41 near Pine Ridge Road, next to the Waterside Shops and Artis-Naples, fetched $17.5 million. Stretching 70,000 square feet, its anchor tenants include SunTrust Bank, Bank of Montreal and UBS.

The seller was Gulf Shore Associates, an investment partnership headed by Naples resident Al Kleban. The group purchased the building in the mid-1980s shortly after it was built, and recently remodeled it, upgrading its lobbies, restrooms and other common areas, as well as its landscaping.

The new owner is Steelbridge Capital, a real estate investor based in Chicago and Miami. It plans more improvements to the building, at 801 Laurel Oak Drive.

Steelbridge saw the purchase as a rare opportunity in a high-growth, affluent city, where office buildings of this type aren’t often offered for sale, said Gavin Campbell, a managing principal for the company.

“This property has been under the same ownership for nearly 30 years,” he said in a statement. “The SunTrust Building is an exceptional property and fits our investment strategy.”

The building is nearly 90 percent leased.

“The combination of the timeless and elegant style of the building, along with its high-profile U.S. 41 location, has always made and will continue to make the building very desirable for prospective tenants,” said Dougall McCorkle, a sales associate with Premier Commercial Inc., a subsidiary of the Lutgert Cos. in Naples.

McCorkle, who brokered the sale for the former owner, will continue to handle the leasing at the building.

The vacancy rate for Class A buildings in the Naples market is at 10 percent. There are fewer than two dozen of them in Collier County, McCorkle said.

Class A buildings are of a higher quality and well-located, commanding higher rental rates than those classified as B, or C.

The SunTrust Building is Steelbridge’s third office investment in the Naples market, said Jay Caplin, another managing principal in the company.

“We viewed the economic tumult of the past few years, followed by a rapid recovery in Southwest Florida, as an opportune time to increase our presence in this key area,” he said in a statement. “This is our first acquisition in 2014 with more in the pipeline.”

The building went under contract in January.