Retail real estate investors keep filling up on Wawa gas station convenience stores in South Florida. Two different buyers closed on a Wawa in Fort Lauderdale and another in Hialeah Gardens, paying a combined $22 million.
In the Fort Lauderdale deal, Tampa-based Brightwork Real Estate sold the recently completed Wawa at 6191 North Powerline Road for $10.8 million.
Records show the buyer is an entity managed by Terri Keogh, president of New York-based Castro Properties, a real estate investment firm that owns commercial properties in New York, Massachusetts, Virginia and Florida. Castro is a family owned business founded by Bernard Castro, owner and founder of national furniture retailer Castro Convertibles, according to Castro Properties’ website.
HialeahWW, LLC picked up the Wawa currently under construction at 7878 Northwest 103rd Street in Hialeah Gardens for $11.5 million. The buyer is managed by Wanamassa Garden Apartments LLC in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, records show.
The seller is Ferber Company, a real estate development and investment company based in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
Patrick Nutt, EVP of SRS Real Estate Partners, who represented the sellers, said the $11.5 million Hialeah Gardens deal marks the highest amount ever paid for a Wawa in Florida. It surpasses the $10.8 million sale earlier this year of a Wawa in Doral.
“I’ve handled transactions for most of the Wawas in Florida,” Nutt said. “I’ve sold 80 stores out of 200 that are open [in the state].” He’s handled 17 Wawa deals just this year, Nutt added.
He said the Fort Lauderdale and Hialeah Gardens Wawas each received three to four bids. “The sites were on the market for about three to four weeks before we settled on the buyers,” Nutt said. “From an investor standpoint, you’re getting an investment-grade tenant with a 20-year lease in best-in-class locations. Wawa is a market leader in convenience stores.”
Nutt added that both sites are in high traffic areas in dense infill locations.
In the last two years, Wawas have been a hot real estate commodity. In 2019, a company tied to Kenneth Gaul of Port Jefferson, New York, paid $6.8 million for a Delray Beach Wawa built by Banyan Development. The same year, Coral Rock Development sold a Wawa in Cutler Bay for $5.7 million.
In January 2020, Promociones 96, an entity tied to Juan Petrizzo of Boca Raton, bought a Wawa at 2620 Broward Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale for $7.2 million. A month later, Brightwork Real Estate sold another Wawa it developed at 3288 South Military Trail in Palm Springs for $7 million.