Maryland pizzeria owner buys Palm Beach Gardens warehouses for $11.2M

The buildings sold for $201 psf

10358 Riverside Drive 100 (Inset: Blake Smith)
10358 Riverside Drive 100 (Inset: Blake Smith)

Maryland-based Bagby Pizza Co. owner Blake Smith just paid $11.2 million for three warehouses in Palm Beach Gardens.

The warehouses at 10358 Riverside Drive 100 total 55,680 square feet and sit on nearly 4 acres, property records show. The buildings sold for $201 per square foot.

Smith bought the property under West Palm Beach-based entity Angler Riverside, LLC. He took out a $7.3 million mortgage from BankUnited, records show.

The seller is Riverside Drive Investors LLC, an affiliate of the Palm Beach Gardens-based commercial real estate firm Asset Specialists. The entity bought the property in 2007 for $8 million, or $143 per square foot, according to records.

Tenants include wellness center Florida Institute of Performance and printing company Print Headquarters. Thomas R. Gibson, president of Asset Specialists, was not immediately available for comment.

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Smith owns three Bagby Pizza restaurants in Maryland with a fourth in the works, according to published reports. He is also the owner of Cunningham’s Cafe and Bakery, another Maryland-based restaurant. His father David Smith is the former chief operating officer of Sinclair Broadcast Group.

In May, another Maryland-based company bought four, two-story office buildings between 11601 to 11641 Key Gardens Avenue, just three miles northeast from the warehouse. Records show W.C. and A.N. Miller Development Co. purchased the office park totaling 86,349 square feet for $18.6 million.

Another recent sale of office space in West Palm Beach includes last week’s $13.81 million trade of two 10-story office towers at 2000 and 2090 Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard. The sale price breaks down to $92 per square foot.

Still, commercial space is proving to be an issue in West Palm Beach, a recent real estate development and investment forum in the county discussed its lack of available commercial space and traffic problems.

In the first quarter of this year, West Palm Beach’s industrial market vacancies declined to a 10-year low of 3.8 percent  the lowest in the South Florida region, according to a report from Colliers International South Florida.