Miami Beach-based HS Capital Fund recently paid $5.985 million for Bridgewater Marketplace, a Winn Dixie-anchored shopping center in east Orlando, according to Orange County property records.

HS Capital president Harry Spitzer told GrowthSpotter the Bridgewater acquisition was the company’s first in the Orlando area.

“We have properties in Miami and Palm Beach,” Spitzer said. “We are looking at more opportunities in Orlando.”

The seller, according to county property records, was LNR Partners, which owned the shopping center through an affiliate. LNR is a subsidiary of Starwood Property Trust, an affiliate of the global private investment firm Starwood Capital Group. LNR also divested of Lakeview Plaza, a Publix-anchored shopping center in Kissimmee, for $2.8 million in late July.

“We like the corridor,” Spitzer said. “We like the old and new residential developments that were put up and are being put up in that area. It’s next to major highways and we’re hoping to do some restructuring as well.”

Spitzer said the shopping center is 100-percent leased. In addition to the Winn Dixie, tenants at the shopping center include Subway, State Farm and Greenberg Dental.

“We’re happy with what we have right now but we’re going to make it better,” Spitzer said. “We’re going to be doing capital improvements and we are going to bring in bigger and better tenants.”

JLL Capital Markets represented the sellers in the transaction. JLL senior vice president Tarik Bateh said the shopping center is well located to benefit from new residential growth exploding to the north and also from commuters driving home from downtown Orlando.

“The majority of the people who will be buying houses are to the north of us on Lake Pickett Road,” Bateh told GrowthSpotter. “And for people commuting out of town, the termination of the east-west expressway is almost at our front door, which is very beneficial.”

Also adding to the value of the site, Bateh said, is the new 296-unit Coda apartment complex, and Florida Hospital’s free-standing emergency room now under construction. Both are across the street from the shopping center.

TCII Capital Group, an affiliate of HS Capital Fund, will handle property management at the center, Spitzer said.

HS Capital fund is a privately held, commercial real estate investment firm which owns and manages property, primarily in Florida, New York and New Jersey. Spitzer founded the company in 2014, but the firm traces its roots back almost 40 years to Joseph Spitzer’s formation of Allstate Realty Associates in Brooklyn, N.Y. Allstate owns or has controlling interests in assets with total valuations exceeding $250 million, according to its website.

HS Capital entered the Florida market in 2014 with the acquisition of the Flagler West Corporate Center, a mixed-use office/retail property located in the Fontainebleau neighborhood of Dade County with some 150,000 square feet of gross leasable area.