A joint venture of developers is under contract to buy a Coconut Creek shopping center and won approval to expand it with a Sprouts Farmers Market and more.
Strada Plaza, a 7.1-acre retail center near the intersection of Lyons Road and Coconut Creek Parkway, also will add a 1,500-square-foot Cali Coffee shop and a five-story Sentry Self Storage facility with about 120,000 square feet. Sprouts will have a 23,000-square-foot grocery store.
Evan Mouhalis, managing partner of Delray Beach-based Mouhalis Capital Management, said the Strada Plaza expansion is a joint venture between his firm and Pinecrest-based MMG Equity Partners, led by principal Martin Pico.
Mouhalis and Pico are the managers of Strada CC Development LLC, according to state records. Their entity bought a parcel within Strada Plaza in October for $2 million from Hamsa Hand Holdings LLC, according to Broward County property records.
Hamsa owns the rest of Strada Plaza and is under contract to sell it to Mouhalis and Pico’s joint venture, Mouhalis said. State records list three managers of Hamsa as Alan B. Osofsky, Deirdre Osofsky, and Robert Keats, all based in Palm Beach.
Mouhalis declined to disclose the contract price. But he said the closing is imminent, and that Seacoast National Bank will finance construction of Strada Plaza’s expansion. The total cost of the project, including land costs, is about $23 million, he said.
Sprouts Farmers Market, Cali Coffee, and Sentry Self Storage have pre-leased their buildings, which will be completed and ready to occupy in late 2024, Mouhalis said.
“We don’t get this often. You brought us a project with tenants,” Mayor Joshua Rydell told the developers at the Coconut Creek City Commission meeting last week, prior to commissioners unanimously approving the site plan for Strada Plaza’s expansion.
Existing properties at the plaza include a Regions Bank office and a medical building.
Aesthetic issues briefly sidetracked the expansion project last month. The Coconut Creek City Commission tabled a vote on the site plan on April 27 after several commissioners criticized the exterior design of the self-storage center.
By the time the commissioners met again May 11, the developers had redesigned the building with less red in the color scheme, and windows with tinting or partitions that block a clear view of the storage units inside.
“I still can’t help but feel that this building sticks out in this location,” commissioner Jackie Railey said. “It’s not up to Coconut Creek’s standards. I’d love to see some changes that make it blend in more.”
But Railey and the rest of the city commissioners still approved the Strada Plaza expansion plan, along with a rezoning of the property that allows its permitted uses to include a grocery store, a self-storage facility, and a café with drive-through service.