Ashton Woods Homes buys land for Whitaker Park Sarasota community

BUYER: Ashton Tampa Residential LLC (principals: Bruce Freeman, Harry Rosenbaum, Seymour Joffe, Kenneth Balogh, Pete Small and John Reny), Maitland
SELLER: Richardson Road Investments LLC
PROPERTY: 5700 Richardson Road, Sarasota
PRICE: $3.35 million
PREVIOUS PRICE: $720,000, November 2011
LAW FIRM ON DEED: David A. Bacon Esq., St. Petersburg

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: Ashton Woods Homes purchased 18.45 acres of planned commercial development land for $3.35 million.

The price equated to $181,442 per acre.

The homebuilder has named the property Whitaker Park and plans to develop a community of 91 single-family home lots.

“We will have to do some land development there,” says Mike Roche, vice president of sales and marketing of Ashton Woods Homes. “Not a lot, but the earth work will likely take a few months, so we expect to start models there in early summer. We hope to have two model homes there completed by late summer or early fall.”

Homes in the development are expected to range in size from 1,600 to 3,000 square feet.

The homebuilder was attracted to the property primarily because of its location, Roche says. It sits in the University Parkway corridor, near big-box retail but separated from it by Richardson Road.

The Atlanta-based homebuilder reports it sold 177 homes in the Tampa Bay area in 2012, a 55% increase from 2011.