Promotional products company HC Brands sold its St. Augustine Road office building April 21 for about $3.4 million.
It sold the facility through 2021 JAX LLC to a Miami-based investor, according to HC Brands President and CEO Bryan Croft.
The facility was on the market for about four months. The deed was not recorded as of 3:15 p.m. April 23.
Croft said the company will lease its 30,000-square-foot space for three years while it searches for a permanent location.
“So now I have that three-year window to figure out where we’re going next,” he said.
“As our business continues to grow, we have to decide what part of town we want to go to.”
He said he needs a space as large as 80,000 square feet.
HC Brands is at 2021 St. Augustine Road E., about a mile from San Marco Square in San Marco East.
Croft said he would like to stay in the neighborhood, but is open to options including Downtown and Arlington. He intends to make a purchase.
He said he could renovate an existing facility or build a new one.
“The oyster is mine. I can do whatever we want,” he said.
“That’s the beauty of having three years to play this all out.”
HC Brands was founded as Holmes Stamp Co. in 1954. It has been at the St. Augustine Road location for about 15 years.
Croft started working for the company, which was owned by his parents, after graduating from the University of North Florida in 1998. He bought it from them in 2009 under a “15-year mortgage.”
HC Brands has more than 100 employees. It also operates eight niche websites, including simplystamps.com, mykoozie.com, customsigns.com, nametagwizard.com and others.
In 2022, Croft sold company-owned business unit All American ID, a wholesale distributor, to focus on growing HC Brands’ e-commerce footprint.
“We’re all in with e-commerce now. We’re modern,” he told the Daily Record in 2024.
HC Brands said it produced $17.2 million in revenue in 2023.