West Winds Assisted Living Facility is no longer locally owned.
The 75-bed for-profit facility, located at 37411 Eiland Blvd., in Zephyrhills, was sold Oct. 1 to Sabra Health Care Holdings III, which lists its address in Irvine, California, according to Pasco County property records.
West Winds Prime LLC was the seller. The Palm Harbor company’s ownership has essentially managed the facility through various companies since West Winds opened in 2008.
Sabra is a real estate investment trust that acquires senior citizen housing, memory care and skilled nursing facilities around the country. It purchased West Winds for $10.2 million, adding it to six skilled nursing facilities and three senior housing facilities Sabra purchased through the first half of 2014 for $141.5 million, according to its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
It’s not clear how many facilities purchased recently, but a newspaper in Nashville reported the REIT closed on a facility there around the same time for $21.1 million.
Real estate investment trusts, or REITs, are financial securities that allow investors to buy ownership into a property or mortgage, rather than in a company like what would typically be found on the stock market. Investors in such projects usually earn a percentage of profit from rents or fees collected from tenants in those properties, and would receive a portion of any profits made when the REIT sells that project to someone else.
Through the end of June, Sabra already owned six skilled nursing facilities in Florida, according to the company’s website. That includes a 107-bed campus in Fort Pierce the company purchased last March as part of a two-facility, $24.5 million deal.
West Winds did not respond to a request for comment.
This is the third largest real estate transaction in Pasco this year, behind the $36.1 million sale of the Arlington at Northwood apartment complex in Wesley Chapel, and the $16 million sale of more than 330 acres of land in Wiregrass Ranch to make way for a proposed 550-home subdivision. Both of those transactions took place in May.
