Commercial Real Estate
One Energy Place Sold for $41 Million
SVN Southland Commercial’s Michael Carro, CCIM, spent seven years working toward the sale of Florida Power & Light’s Pensacola headquarters. He shared with me on “Rick’s Blog Live” how a confidential listing, a bidding war, and a construction-savvy buyer from Mobile turned the downtown waterfront icon into Pensacola’s newest multi-tenant office tower.
Sale price: $41 million, including FF&E
Asking price: $42–$46 million
Building size: 250,000 square feet, five stories
Land: 13.38 acres of waterfront property in downtown Pensacola
Built: 1986, with an estimated effective age of under five years
Closed: Friday, July 31, 2026 – See One Energy Deed
One Energy Place, the five-story, 250,000-square-foot former Gulf Power/Florida Power & Light headquarters on Pensacola Bay, sold for $41 million when the deal closed July 31. The price included a substantial furniture, fixtures, and equipment package that one source valued in the original range of $11 million before depreciation.
Listing broker Michael Carro, CCIM, Senior Advisor and Managing Director at SVN Southland Commercial, walked me through how the deal came together and why he believes the building will be fully leased within the next three to six months.
“Of all the listings I’ve ever had in my life, this was the one I wanted, not because of the money and the commission, although that was good. But really because it was such a special asset for the community.”
Seven Years in the Making
Carro’s relationship with the property predates the sale by years. He had worked with Gulf Power, and later Florida Power & Light after the ownership transition, informally evaluating the building’s market value on an annual basis, at no charge, long before the company decided to sell.
When FPL finally decided to move forward, the company opened the listing to the entire brokerage community rather than handing it directly to Carro.
“So we had a good, robust conversation and valuations and stuff. And ultimately I was awarded, SVN was awarded the listing.”
The listing stayed confidential for months. Even Carro’s own office and his wife didn’t know he had it–a secrecy that fed one of the biggest rumors circulating in Pensacola real estate circles before the building officially hit the market.
“In real estate, you don’t talk about your deals. You can talk about them now, when they’re closed, but really you just don’t talk about them because anything can happen. They certainly could have pulled it. But more importantly, when the client wants it to be highly confidential, you don’t say a word.”
Built in 1986, Maintained Like New
Carro credited FPL’s maintenance for keeping the 1986 building in near-new condition, pointing to a roof replaced three years ago and cooling tower systems that are three to four years old.
“This building was built in 1986, but it has the effective age of being less than five years old. I mean, it’s unbelievable how well they took care of this asset.”
Financing an Empty Office Tower
The building was delivered vacant–a major complication in a national lending environment that has soured on large office properties since the pandemic.
- “Imagine a 250,000 square foot empty office building and trying to get financing on it,” Carro said. “The positive about Pensacola is our vacancy in office space downtown is only 4 percent. So it’s good in our market. But banks don’t just work in our market. They look at national.”
He said several banks turned the deal down outright: “I’m sorry. Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t. We will not finance office buildings like this.”
Two factors helped the buyer get the deal financed:
- Florida Power & Light agreed to remain as a tenant on the fourth floor, anchoring the building and preserving institutional knowledge of its systems.
- The buyer brought construction, property management, and real estate development capacity in-house, giving lenders confidence in the execution plan.
FPL will lease the fourth floor. Carro said the company’s institutional knowledge of the building was as valuable as its rent check.
- “They have this tribal knowledge of the building that if they were to have vacated–’Hey, where is this? Where is that?’ I mean, think about it: a small building still has complexities. But if you owned it and left, trying to get that knowledge is really difficult. So the tribal knowledge that will remain in the building is so valuable to the buyers.”
Who Bought It
The buyer is based in Mobile and owns a substantial portfolio of real estate assets, according to Carro. “He has a construction company, a property management company, and a real estate company,” Carro said. “So he has all of the things, and the knowledge, more importantly, that he can invest into this building. Just the due diligence on an asset like this is hundreds of thousands of dollars and a heck of a lot of man-hours.”
“Even if you have a lot of money, doesn’t mean you should take down this type of asset without that type of experience in your back pocket.”
The group considered converting portions of the building to a hotel or condos before ultimately deciding to keep One Energy Place a multi-tenant office building.
- More Background: The deed lists the buyer as One Energy Plaza, LLC. Its address, 3201 Daulphin Street, Mobile, Ala., is the same given for John White-Spunner in corporate documents filed with the state of Florida. White-Spunner is the founder, president and CEO of White-Spunner Construction and White-Spunner Realty. The Associated General Contractors of Alabama has inducted him into the Alabama Construction Hall of Fame.
Leasing Already Underway
Carro said leasing activity has moved faster than he expected:
- The first new tenant moved in on Monday, occupying roughly 11,000 square feet.
- At closing, 127,000 square feet were already under signed lease.
- Roughly 123,000 square feet remain available.
- Carro is negotiating an additional 150,000 square feet in active deals–more space than remains, meaning some prospects won’t close.
Carro said he would not be surprised if the building is fully leased within three to six months.
- “As long as I’ve been in this business, I’m completely surprised at the response. It has been overwhelming, and it’s been kind of on the down low,” he said. “Not every deal is going to cross the finish line, but I will not be surprised at this point–I would have been before–if we’re not 100 percent full in the next three to six months.”
He credited cooperation with competing Pensacola brokerages, including NAI Pensacola, Sterling Properties, and Neal & Company, for helping fill the space: “We are fortunate to have a great commercial real estate brokerage community in Pensacola… those are my partners in filling up this building.”
Signs
The building’s new signage went up the afternoon of the closing, after the seller withheld permission to post signs until funds had officially transferred–a request Carro honored even as the buyer pushed him to post them early once due diligence money became non-refundable.
- “The buyer’s like, ‘Mike, we want you to put signs up.’ And I was like, ‘I know, but I don’t work for you in this capacity. I have to wait for the seller to give authorization.'”
The call finally came at 7:21 a.m. on closing day. “I got a call from my client, my seller, at 7:21 Friday morning: ‘We’re official.’ And so I called the sign guy and said, ‘Now.’ They were ordered for Saturday. But I said, ‘Nope. Go today.'”
The full interview with Carro will be posted on “We Don’t Color on the Dog,” my YouTube channel, later today.
