Former LBK Chamber building sells for $549,000

A former bank building at 6960 Gulf of Mexico Drive that once housed the Longboat Key Chamber of Commerce sold for $549,000 on April 24.

Built as a bank for a former First Bank in 1976, the 4,756 square-foot glass office building sits on two-thirds of an acre just south of the former Longbeach Chevron gas station and across the street from the Broadway beach access.

Eugen Aldea, a broker-associate with Michael Saunders & Company’s Palmer Ranch office, represented the seller, PFG LLC. The buyer, Anthony and Roxanne Marterie of San Rafael, Calif., trustees of the Marterie Family Trust, was represented by real-estate-agent Rose Alstrom of Horizon Realty International.

The property was previously purchased by PFG Asset Management LLC from First Bank for $533,900 in August 2010 and was quit-claim deeded to PFG LLC in March 2011.

The Marteries also own two pieces of Key residential property at 590-591 De Narvaez Drive and a home at 705 Jungle Queen Way. The Marteries, who also previously owned a home on Lido Beach and property in downtown Sarasota, did not return a phone call seeking comment. Anthony Marterie is listed as the president of Marterie & Associates Inc., a subsidiary of Sausalito, Calif.-based North Coast Industries, which is listed as a clothing/dress manufacturing company.

“The Marteries have not disclosed what they have planned for the property,” Alstrom said.

The property was stuck in legal limbo since July 2012 because it was owned through a corporation by former investor Aubrey Lee Price, who was accused of using two funds to orchestrate a $70 million investment fraud tied to 10 Manatee County properties, including the bank property. Price disappeared that summer after telling acquaintances and investors he lost a large amount of money and planned to kill himself. 

Price, who left his family and moved to Valdosta, Ga., was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2014 for faking his own death and creating a Ponzi scheme that led to the demise of a federally insured bank.

For more information on the sale, pick up a copy of next week's Longboat Observer.

Contact Kurt Schultheis at [email protected].