Tennessee Investor Buys MPG Shopping Center

A Tennessee investor has made its first South Florida real estate acquisition by assuming the $26.8-million debt on the Publix at Whitworth Farms shopping center in unincorporated Palm Beach County. Boynton-Whitworth Farms, an affiliate of Brentwood, Tenn.-based PGM Properties, agreed to take over the loan of MPG Flavor Pict Road, an affiliate of Safety Harbor-based Monroe’s Prestige Group.

MPG, which obtained a $32.6-million loan from Superior Bank in June 2007, developed the 112,000-square-foot center in 2008. However, the center’s anchor tenant for the past six years, Lakeland-based Publix Super Markets, turned down a chance to buy the property for $29.9 million.

PGM executives plan to visit the center to plan a leasing strategy and determine what improvements are needed, says PGM president Dudley Parker. The center currently has about 40,000 square feet of vacant space. Parker says that PGM will continue to look at a number of South Florida properties in the future.