Cocoanut Avenue Land Owner Sees Profit - Summer 2015

Drazmar 599 Land, LLC, an entity managed by Sarasota attorney David Shapiro, was told by many that it was undertaking a big risk in buying a tract at 599 Cocoanut Ave. for $687,500 in 2010 – a transaction Harshman & Co. brokered on his behalf. The 31,388-square-foot parcel had been part of the failed CityPlace development in the mid-2000s, and later a part of the doomed Proscenium project that sought to bring a Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and other luxury offerings to a seven-acre tract downtown. The property was then foreclosed on by Cadence Bank, after the Proscenium’s developer defaulted on a $4.7 million loan, and purchased by Shapiro. He recently sold the parcel for $1.55 million, again with Harshman & Co.’s assistance, garnering a 125 percent return in less than five years.