After success with his first two Synergy Suites, Naples developer Frank Stier purchased two former ASG Technology buildings, and transformed one into office suites and the other into Synergy Medical Suites.
As Om Holdings 704 & 708 LLC, Stier purchased the twin 45,000-square-foot, three-story buildings at 704 and 708 Goodlette-Frank Road N. from New York hedge fund manager Jonathan Shechtman’s Florida Office Property LLC for $11 million in November 2020. The 704 building was built for Allen Systems Group in 2004 and 708 was constructed 1½ years later. The offices, which are connected by a porte cochere and feature 132 parking spaces, are on 5 lush, serene acres featuring mature trees and a lake.
Stier is employing the same office-rental concept he used for Synergy Suites-Eleven Ten at 1110 Pine Ridge Road and the Synergy Suites-Fifty Fifty-One at 5051 Castello Drive, where he provides offices, meeting rooms, shared spaces, utilities, Wi-Fi, cafe and kitchen areas, free coffee, mailboxes, printing, copiers and other necessities as part of a monthly lease that’s affordable for startups and businesses.
“The key is we’re catering to the community,” Stier says, adding that he received approval from the city of Naples to operate a school on Synergy Suites-704’s first floor and to operate a medically designated building, Synergy Medical Suites. “It’s hard to find buildings in this area that are newer-construction quality with hurricane-impact windows that weren’t flooded and have full backup generators. It’s a sizable investment.”
Physicians, therapists, nurses, psychologists, massage therapists, aestheticians and other entrepreneurial tenants—“It makes sense to have everybody in those services consolidated into one building,” Stier says. “We’re seeing that trend in hair salons, such as (J. Lee) Salon Suites. I was meditating and the idea came to me. By multitenanting the office, I saw the opportunity to switch from office to service-related.”
The medical designation quickly lured Meliora Healthcare, Stepping Stones Kids Therapy, Vision Quest and a group of NCH gastroenterologists and pulmonologists. And some of the 704 medical, therapy and wellness-related tenants, such as Crossroads Behavioral Health Center, will move to 708, which, under the medical designation, features hard floors and no carpeting.
Brandon Stoneburner, Colliers International’s executive managing director for office services, chose Benjamin Moore’s light Olympic Gray to brighten both buildings’ old Tuscan-style lobbies. The outdated reception area was removed, and orange tile floors were ripped out and replaced with wide-plank white-oak floors and new molding. Stoneburner selected contemporary furnishings from Arhaus Furniture, Restoration Hardware and Lumens for both buildings’ lobby areas on each floor. Other cosmetic changes include adding LED lighting to brighten the buildings, as well as adding motivational artwork and nature paintings.
“The renovations have been a huge success,” Stoneburner says. “The Meliora lease is the largest signed in Collier County this year.”
For 704, Stier hired custom commercial builder BUILD—which renovated his ultra-contemporary and zen Eleven Ten—to convert 2,950 square feet on the third floor for Florida Gulf Coast University Academy, providing a spacious, carpeted meeting and lecture room featuring 10-foot ceilings, rows of long wooden conference tables and black faux leather chairs with a large screen, monitors and audio-visual capabilities for lectures and teleconferencing. The conference tables feature recessed power ports and data connectivity.
The lobby, once a dark wood-paneled reception area, is spacious and bright, featuring potted plants and plush dark gray couches flanking a modern chrome and white table on a geometric-style gray and white rug. Similar eating areas were added on each floor, where tenants have access to full kitchens and cafe areas with coffee, cappuccino and espresso makers and vending machines. Ample windows provide serene views of the lake and wooded area.
Among tenants are marketing firms, a telecommunications firm, financial businesses, Intersoft Electronics, an Ayurveda practice and Transcendental Meditation of Naples and Fort Myers.
Stepping Stones Kids Therapy, which provides speech and occupational therapy and applied behavioral analysis, took over the first floor of Synergy Medical Suites, while Meliora leased the second floor. A pale green sea-glass divider separates Stepping Stones’ entrance from the lobby and elevators accessing the second and third floors. Stepping Stones also leased the first floor of 704 for administrative offices and half for its SSKids Academy, a new private elementary school for children with behavioral and developmental challenges.
Synergy Medical Suites’ 15,000-square-foot third floor, which features a spacious lobby, offers 57 offices for health care and therapy services.
“This building would be dead in the water if it were just offices, because it would be vacant and really struggling,” Stier says of obtaining the medical designation. “By catering to the community, we’ve been able to accommodate these services.”
