Starwood Land two years ahead of Country Club East sales schedule
LAKEWOOD RANCH -- One of the biggest residential land deals in Manatee County in recent memory is paying off more quickly than expected for a Lakewood Ranch development company.
Starwood Land Ventures, a subsidiary of Starwood Capital of Greenwich, Conn., bought a huge chunk of Lakewood Ranch in 2013 with the intent of developing building lots and selling them at a markup. With the fast uptick in the new home market, it is exceeding its own predictions about how long it would take to sell off about 670 lots in the gated Country Club East subdivision.
In the past five months alone, Starwood Land has made seven multimillion sales to homebuilders and expects more big deals to come this year.
According to Manatee County records, the company has sold 378 lots and some undivided acreage since September 2013. Recorded proceeds from those sales total $58.7 million.
Buyers include local home builders Neal Signature homes and Lee Wetherington Homes, and regional and national companies Taylor Morrison and WCI Communities.
Mike Moser, CEO of Lakewood Ranch-headquartered Starwood Land, said his company still has about 350 lots to sell in Country Club East. He said his company has invested significant work and funds in Country Club East since 2013. Two years of steady sales and infrastructure development have spurred sales in the decade-old subdivision, which stalled in 2008 with the collapse of Florida's housing market.
Starwood Land is now two years ahead of schedule on sales.
"It's been good, it's been very good," Moser said.
Starwood Land signed a deal with Lakewood Ranch developer Schroeder-Manatee Ranch to develop and sell the home lots in Country Club East. It paid SMR $45 million. Of that, about
$26 million was for the land. The remainder, Moser said, is debt his company assumed from SMR.
He said the total cost to Starwood Land to develop Country Club East will be about $75 million. That includes all plumbing and sewer infrastructure, roads, landscaping and a $3 million contribution to the construction of the subdivision's clubhouse and pool.
SMR has developed a private golf course in the community and recently finished construction of a new clubhouse.
Moser said the company's total sales in Country Club East are slightly greater than what has been recorded with the county, touching about $60 million. Starwood land is in negotiations to sell about 100 of its remaining lots. The company has yet to finish development on 219 lots, Moser said.
Based on sales registered with the county, Starwood Land has been selling the Country Club East land for an average $146,283 for each lot. Considering the total compensation the company gave SMR for the land, Starwood paid the equivalent of about $67,000 per lot.
One developer happy to pay the markup is Neal Communities. The Lakewood Ranch company started building homes in the $200,000 price range in the Belle Isle neighborhood of Country Club East a decade ago.
Since 2013, Neal has purchased about 180 lots in the subdivision and is building homes through its semi-custom brand, Neal Signature Homes.
It's now building homes priced from the high $400,000 range to more than $800,000.
Pat Neal, the chairman of Neal Communities, said Country Club East has been important to his company's resurgence after the Great Recession. It sold more homes last year than any time in its 45-year history.
"It really jump-started our company in 2010 when we started Belle Isle," he said. "We have been successful there since start up."
Moser would not comment on whether his company might enter future development deals with SMR as it begins developing acreage south of University Parkway.
Matt M. Johnson, Herald business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7027 or on Twitter @MattAtBradenton.
This story was originally published April 17, 2016 at 11:29 PM with the headline "Starwood Land two years ahead of Country Club East sales schedule ."