This blog was written by a very excited Stu Bradin, Global SOF (GSOF) President & CEO.
———
If you’ve talked to me in the past few months, there’s a good chance I told you about Global SOF’s endeavor to develop a headquarters here in Tampa, FL…
Well, the wait is over and we are moving forward.
If you are familiar with the GSOF mission, then you know that “convening the community” is the cornerstone of what we do, and doing that well requires a functional, welcoming, multi-purpose venue. Our regular conferences, events, and huddles are great platforms that help us convene the SOF community, but those are all short term and temporary events.
GSOF needs an HQ that can serve as our pillar for convening the SOF community…and on 2 APR 2026, we took a giant leap toward that goal…
We bought a building.
The Inspiration
Four years ago, I attended a Change of Command at Little Creek, Virginia and the event was held in the SEAL and SWCC Heritage Center. I had never been there before, but when I walked in I was blown away. Throughout the entire ceremony I could not help but admire the facility and how it supported the SEAL and SWCC community. At the conclusion of the ceremony, I walked around trying not to be noisy, but I really wanted to see the place.
[Editor’s Note: I’m sure Stu meant to say “nosey”, but I think it’s funnier for us all to picture him trying not to be noisy]
After returning to Tampa, I sat down and started to think about building a similar facility in Tampa. I don’t remember how I broached the idea to Meaghan but at some point, Chelsea, Meaghan and I set out to find a place in Tampa.
However, the places we could afford at the time did not match our requirements. Chelsea quickly jumped in with both feet and found us coworking space at Industrious, where we leased four offices for GSOF while we continued the search for a permanent HQ.
The coworking space worked well for what we needed for our staff, but it couldn’t meet our real needs for gathering larger groups of the community to network, meet, and engage.
As GSOF grew we knew we needed a larger space. Chelsea, Meaghan and I also flew to Virginia Beach to meet with the management of the SEAL and SWCC Heritage Center and we took a tour of the entire facility. They were extremely supportive, and they gave us a lot of material and advice. When we left, we were more convinced that GSOF needed to have a similar facility in Tampa.
Well, that was my story and I have stuck to it!
Heritage Matters
My vision was to have a facility in Tampa that was large enough to accommodate meetings and GSOF events to support the SOF community. We sat down and drafted a list of requirements to help us with our search.
For me, we needed meeting space that was “first class, world class” and it needed to be a physical manifestation of the GSOF commitment to the SOF community. We loved how the SEAL and SWCC Heritage Center incorporated a lot of their history into the venue – something GSOF thought was critical.
When I thought about what I needed the space to be able to accomodate, I realized it was a long list:
- Planning Meetings and Conferences
- Town Halls / Information Briefs
- Retirement / Promotion Ceremonies and Celebrations
- Corporate Partner Engagements
- Tech Events and Assessments
- Networking Events and Socials
- Internal Global SOF Meetings and Events
- Staff Work and Collaboration Space
But I needed all of that to be possible in a space that embodied SOF–the history and heritage that got us where we are, but with a goal of enabling the networks and capabilities needed for the SOF of the future.
It needed to be cool, welcoming, educational, functional, reconfigurable, and accessible.
And it turns out… that’s not an easy type of place to find!
The Three-Year Search
As always, I started with who I know.
Scott Feldmeyer, Co-Founder of GSOF Corporate Partner Barbaricum, bought a beautiful building in Ybor a few years back. He did me a huge favor and introduced us to his broker, John DeLaVergne. It was at this point that the real journey began. We had never bought commercial real estate, so John had his work cut out for him. He had also never worked with me before, so he really didn’t know what he was getting into.
We looked at a lot of properties. I knew I wanted a central location with access to a lot of parking, and that Chelsea and Meaghan were wanting “character,” so we spent a lot of time looking in Ybor. When that kept falling through, we expanded to downtown Tampa.
The commercial property market in the Tampa area is some of the hottest in the nation so finding something that we could afford in a good place and that has the requirements we need is tough.
We submitted Letters of Intent on two properties that we did not get – I love being rejected!
It was wearing on me and on the team…Chelsea went from creating a mock-up and floorplan of every building we saw to just taking a few photos and waiting to hear if there was any hope before putting in any time.
John realized he needed to dig deeper, and he found a building that was not on the market… but could be.
I was headed overseas on a trip, so I asked Meaghan if she could just go check it out with the team. As our COO, she is notoriously the one who holds tight on the purse strings, so she was the hardest to pull over to the dark side and get 100% on board with the vision.
When I got back, I asked Meaghan what she thought of this one…and she said that of all the buildings we have seen, this is the one she liked the most. She quickly described everything, and it was clear that it had damn near everything we wanted.
That was the day I dubbed this one “Meaghan’s Building”… I should have known it would be the winner just from that alone.
The trick now was to see if the owner would sell it.
We’re Closers
I am not sure how John did it, but he talked to the firm that represented the owner, and we got to submit a bid. John had really worked this hard, and he knew what the owner would sell for and we felt that the price was fair.
The owner accepted the offer, and we went through 60 days of due diligence. I wasn’t sure what all could still go wrong, but I had been left at the altar enough times now that I didn’t want to get too excited. But surprisingly, things kept moving along.
It is at this point that I want to thank the GSOF BoD for allowing us to make such a bold move. We also want to thank the team that is pulling this together: John DeLaVernge, Allan Mellske with Interform Architecture + Design, Greg Goldberg with BEAR Construction Company, John Sokol our Program Manager, John J. Kravitz II of Weachter Insurance Agency, and Mark Garber of Chase Bank.
I also want to thank the members of my team that pulled extra duties they have no time to pull to make sure this happened, especially Samuel DeJesus, Kim Dresser, Kat Burnham, Chelsea, and Meaghan.
On 2 April, we closed on the facility and GSOF now owns 4224 Henderson Blvd in South Tampa. It was originally scheduled for 1 April, but thankfully that fell through… I didn’t have it in me for this to be a prank!
Despite all the work done so far, the real project is just beginning now.
We are now working on the design for the buildout, but we hope to complete the renovation by January 2027. This is a huge commitment by GSOF, but when completed it will give the Foundation and the SOF community a great venue to better convene this amazing community.
As we move forward the GSOF team will provide updates on the GSOF Headquarters and we want to extend our thanks to everyone that has contributed to GSOF’s physical manifestation of our commitment to the SOF community.
More to come…
Leave a Reply