Blake Smith’s Angler Buys West Palm Offices From AD4 Exec

Maryland investor Blake Smith bought Northpoint Business Plaza in West Palm Beach,

bringing his total South Florida real estate purchases to about $63 million. It’s a portfolio he amassed largely off the radar during the past eight years. 

Smith, through his Angler Properties, paid $15.5 million for the fully leased complex at 901 Northpoint Parkway in an off-market deal, according to his broker and a news release from the seller’s broker. An entity led by Arturo Alvarez Demalde, an executive with South Florida-based private equity firm AD4, sold the property. 

Michael Falk and Scott Weprin led the Colliers team that represented the seller. Tom Gibson and Darryn Dunn of Asset Specialists represented the seller. 

The buyer assumed an existing $7.4 million loan on the property from the seller, according to Dunn. 

Northpoint Business Plaza spans 80,000 square feet on 6.1 acres. It consists of four adjacent one-story buildings completed in 1987 and 1988, property records show. Alvarez Demalde’s entity paid $12.3 million for the plaza in 2019. 

Smith plans roughly $1 million in capital improvements, Dunn said. 

Tenants at the complex include Colliers, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, Kennedy Contractors, and Wood Environment & Infrastructure Solutions. 

Smith appears to have made a transition into real estate from the pizza business, as he led Maryland-based Bagby Pizza. In 2018, two Bagby pizzerias in the Baltimore area closed, with Smith saying he was working toward exiting the restaurant industry, according to The Baltimore Sun. 

Smith, whose primary line of business now is real estate in Florida and other states, has amassed roughly 400,000 square feet mostly in Palm Beach County and one building in Port St. Lucie since 2015, according to Dunn. 

In 2017, an entity tied to Smith paid $11.2 million for an office complex at 10358 Riverside Drive in Palm Beach Gardens, according to records. He also owns 140,000 square feet of offices spread across nine buildings at 350-500 Columbia Drive in West Palm. 

“He is kind of a private guy,” Dunn said. Asset Specialists “are kind of the front guys for all his real estate.”

Smith joins a club of South Florida real estate investors who amassed real estate here while avoiding the limelight that comes with being a player in the industry. 

The Damaghi family of Great Neck, founders of paper products and personal care items manufacturer First Quality Enterprises, have paid $182.2 million in 15 deals since 2013 in Fort Lauderdale’s Flagler Village and downtown neighborhoods and in downtown Miami and Edgewater.