The founder of a restoration franchise that helps with damage from water, fire and other disasters bought a North Lauderdale office and retail center for $6.3 million.
A company tied to Andor Kovacs bought the center, called Jefferson Square Plaza, at 6041-6047 Kimberly Boulevard, records show.
The 53,000-square-foot center is on about 5 acres of land, with four buildings and 40 office and retail tenants, according to an online listing. A January listing for the center included an asking price of $6.9 million.
Tenants in the retail center include a branch of a Latin American Pentecoastal church, apparel and jewelry store Gold Money Grillz and the Hair Talks salon.
The seller is a company tied to Steven Cooperman and Scott Schoenlank. Schoenlank owns Shelter Corp. of America, a property management and facility maintenance firm for properties in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to his LinkedIn. Schoenlank is also a broker with Sawgrass Commerce Realty and has an online listing to lease ground-floor space at the center for about $15 a square foot.
Marcus & Millichap’s Quinn Sousa, Ryan T. Shaw and Jose Fernandez had the listing to sell the center, according to a release. Gus Bergamini of The Keyes Company represented Kovacs.
The center had 85 percent occupancy before Covid-19. As stay-at-home orders lifted, the center’s occupancy rose to 100 percent, according to the release.
A 2015 Fox Business article reported that Kovacs moved to the U.S. in 1999 from Hungary. He tried acting before entering the restoration business. He opened Restoration 1 in 2008 and sold the first franchise in 2010. The company generated $22 million in sales in 2013 and $30 million in 2014, according to an Inside Business article from that time.
In 2016, current CEO Gary Findley “took over,” according to the company’s website. The company has opened at least 14 new locations this year, totaling more than 300 locations nationwide.
Before coronavirus, open-air strip centers appeared an enticing opportunity for real estate investors over closed-air shopping mall counterparts. Real estate investment trusts that own open-air strip centers had seen their share prices rise by 7.7 percent over the past year while mall REITs declined 20.2 percent over the same time span, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing data from FactSet.
In December, a self-storage facility in North Lauderdale sold for $12 million.