SunTrust Selling 40 Properties in Florida for Estimated $14M

Based on an estimated average selling price of $350,000 per property, the sealed auction is expected to yield SunTrust at least $14 million, brokers following the sale tell GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity. Six of the nine Huntington branches in metro Orlando alone are expected to sell for $1 million each; the other three for about $500,000 apiece.

SunTrust is making the divestiture to eliminate overlapping of branches and services. SunTrust acquired 141 Florida branches from Columbus, OH-based Huntington in the $705 million, Feb. 15 acquisition.

One of the largest properties is a two-story office building at 100 Park Place Boulevard in Kissimmee, FL, 20 miles from Downtown Orlando and 10 miles east of Walt Disney World. The asking price: $1.85 million.

Another two-story building in Clearwater, FL, 80 miles west of Downtown Orlando, has a $2.1 million tag attached.

A small branch building at 201 N. Park Ave., Sanford, FL (2,317 sf), is listed for $450,000 or $194.21 per sf--a steep price for real estate in a blue-collar city of 33,000 population where the tallest Downtown office building is six stories.

Tony Bower, SunTrust's vice president/corporate real estate for central and north Florida, couldn't be reached at GlobeSt.com's publication deadline to learn how many bids have been received and how the bank will resolve identical bids on the same property.

Huntington's departure ends seven years of consumer banking business for a bank that was competing for market share with established Florida institutions such as Atlanta-based Bank of America, SunTrust and Wachovia Corp. of Charlotte. Huntington had 250,000 customers when it closed the book in Florida.