Citigroup buys its huge Tampa service center in record deal

TAMPA — Citigroup Inc. has purchased its huge Tampa service center, home to 5,600 employees, in what is being called Florida's largest-ever sale of single-tenant office buildings.

The price was not disclosed and the deed had not been recorded as of Tuesday, but the 92-acre, six-building site in the Sabal Park area last sold in 1999 for $147 million.

"We are proud to call Tampa home and this decision is a reflection of our ongoing investment and support for the community where we live and work," Don Callahan, Citi's head of operations and technology, said in a release Tuesday.

"Since Citi first established our presence in Tampa in 1983 with a retail support site, we have evolved and expanded to what is now a service center, which provides support for many of Citi's business and global functions," Callahan said.

Among those functions are client services, finance, human resources, legal and risk services.

Developed in 1998, Citibank Center includes 672,500 square feet of Class A office space with a full-service cafeteria, fitness center and wellness center. Citi is the sole tenant in the center, part of the 1,000-acre, master-planned Sabal Park community near interstates 4 and 75.

Citi has more employees in Florida — about 10,0000 — than in any other state except for New York, its corporate headquarters. Slightly more than half of the Florida employees work in the Tampa center, while the rest are scattered in more than 100 branch offices and other locations statewide.

The commercial brokerage CBRE arranged the sale of the property, which had been owned by an affiliate of Zurich Alternative Asset Management.

Contact Susan Taylor Martin at smartin@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8642. Follow @susanskate.