Neal makes $8.66M buy into Country Club East in Lakewood Ranch
LAKEWOOD RANCH -- A subsidiary of Manatee County's largest home builder, Neal Communities, has made one of the most expensive property purchases by any Neal company in 2015, spending $8.66 million on finished building lots in Lakewood Ranch.
The buy comes as the Neal Communities is riding a wave of confidence brought on by an all-time record sales year. On Tuesday, the 45-year-old company estimated that it will sell more than 1,078 homes in 2015, eclipsing last year's record total of 864. In dollars, sales revenue adds up to more than $400 million.
Michael Storey, president of Neal Communities, said that even one day away from the end of the year, he cannot be certain how far above estimates their sales will go.
"I can tell you we will exceed that," he said.
The company is looking ahead to another big year in 2016. Neal's most recent purchase will be part of that. On Dec. 15, Stirling Equity Group, a Neal company managed by Storey and Neal executives James Schier and Priscilla Heim, purchased 72 lots in growing Lakewood Ranch subdivision Country Club East. According to Manatee County property records, Stirling made the purchase in two separate transactions.
The purchase is bigger than the largest the company made in 2014, one for $8.29 million that secured 111 acres in Lakewood Ranch for Neal's Indigo subdivision. The lots purchased in the recent transaction do carry a higher value than the raw land purchased last December as they are all platted and have had infrastructure and streets built around them.
Neal Signature Homes, a high-end, semi-custom division of the company, will build on the Country Club East lots.
The seller in the transaction, SLV II CCE Venture, is a development partnership between Starwood Land Ventures of Scottsdale, Ariz., and Lakewood Ranch master developer Schroeder-Manatee Ranch. Starwood inked a $45 million agreement with SMR in 2013 under which the company will develop 600 lots across 475 acres in Country Club East. The community, one of 10 villages in Lakewood Ranch, is private and gated. It is built around a golf course, lakes and ponds and nature preserves.
SLV II CCE Venture made another sale in Country Club East a day earlier, selling 12 lots in the Prestbury neighborhood to WCI Communities of Bonita Springs for $1.56 million.
Neal's purchase this month is the final takedown in a purchase contract between the builder and the joint venture. Other purchases Neal has made in the subdivision include nine lots for $1.17 million in September, six lots for $1.04 million in August 2014, six lots for $1 million in March 2014 and 13 lots for $1.5 million in December 2013. Neal's latest purchase is in a 360-acre portion at the far eastern edge of Country Club East.
Neal Signature Homes is building in several neighborhoods in Country Club East. Since entering Country Club East, the company has been building homes there selling for an average in the $600,000 range, Storey said. Its most expensive homes in the subdivision sell for more than $800,000.
With the growth of sales this year in Manatee and Sarasota counties and in the Fort Myers-Naples area, Neal Communities has also grown as a company. Storey said additional hiring this year increased its employee count from 192 in 2014 to 236 as of this month.
Matt M. Johnson, Herald business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7027 or on Twitter@MattAtBradenton.
This story was originally published December 29, 2015 at 6:01 PM with the headline "Neal makes $8.66M buy into Country Club East in Lakewood Ranch ."