Huge former Fry's site in Bay Area attracts Florida real estate buyers

FREMONT – A large Fremont site that was formerly home to a Fry's Electronics store has been purchased by a Southeastern real estate investment group for greater than $30 million.

Documents filed with the Alameda County Recorder's Office on June 17 show that the Sterling Organization, through an affiliated company, paid $35.7 million to buy the location of a former Fry's Electronics store in Fremont.

FREMONT, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 24: A customer walks toward the entrance of a closed Fry's Electronics store in Fremont, California, on Wednesday, February 24, 2021. After nearly 36 years in business, the one-stop-shop electronics store announced it is permanently closing all of its stores. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)
An individual walks toward the front entrance of a closed Fry's Electronics store in Fremont, 2021. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)

The Florida-based Sterling Organization is a non-public equity real estate firm that sometimes teams up with large investors to purchase properties nationwide, based on information on the corporate's website.

The former Fry's store on the recently sold property was designed with an electricity theme and was a tribute to the 1893 World's Fair, including a Tesla coil in the shop. From time to time, electrical lightning was simulated at an exhibition.

The seller was an organization called Wardenclyffe LP. Coincidentally, the Wardenclyffe Tower, positioned in upstate New York, was an experimental radio transmission tower designed and built by Nikola Tesla.

Wardenclyffe LP is an affiliate of Quality Real Estate and Quality's managing director, Richard Singer. For several years, Quality Real Estate was positioned at the identical East Brokaw location where Fry's Electronics had its headquarters and a Mayan-style store in north San Jose.

It was not immediately clear from land records whether a number of members of Fry's family were involved within the sale of the Fremont property.

The Fry's store in Fremont closed its doors in 2021, together with quite a few other Fry's retail stores, in a sudden implosion and closure of Fry's operations.

What is definite is that Wardenclyffe purchased the property in 2000, which was the last time the property was purchased. In the 2000 transaction, the customer and seller drafted the deeds in such a way as to hide the worth.

The estimated value of the Fremont property was roughly $26 million in early 2023. The old store remains to be on the property.

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