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Patience, and a lot of it, has paid off for Newland Communities.
The San Diego-based developer opened its latest master-planned community in early November, Bexley, on 1,834 acres in Land O'Lakes in southern Pasco County.
Plans include 1,938 single-family and multifamily homes, with about 94,500 square feet of commercial/retail space and 562,500 square feet of office space. Other planned aspects of the project include trails with fitness stations; BMX bike parks; and a bike rental and repair shop for residents and visitors.
Bexley is one several large scale projects in progress in Pasco, from hotels to grocery stores and other new home developments. “There is so much untapped growth and potential here,” says Newland vice president of marketing Pam Parisi.
But seven years ago, when Newland, the developer behind FishHawk Ranch in Lithia and Waterset in Apollo Beach, was ready to start Bexley the area was tapped out.
Pasco, like Lee County to the south, was a leader among Florida counties crushed by the recession. The New Yorker, in a 2009 story subtitled “Florida's Foreclosure Disaster,” called the area around State road 54 in Pasco County a “ghost subdivision.”
So Newland held off. “You don't want to bring something to market the community isn't ready for,” Parisi tells Coffee talk. “Pasco County wasn't ready for this.”
Newland paid carrying costs on the land from 2009 forward, and a spokesperson says the company never considered selling the land. When the market started to climb out of its funk, Newland began to build momentum. And it invested further in the community, including an acquisition of a 260-acre tract in Lutz, south of Bexley, in summer 2013 for $6 million. That land provided easy and faster access to Bexley. Officials with Newland decline to say how much it cost to hold on to Bexley during the
downturn or how much the developer has invested in the project, in total.
The market response, at least so far, proves the area is now ready for the community. Newland sold a dozen homes in Bexley even before its grand opening, held Nov. 12. Homes in the early stages are priced from around $215,000 to the $600,000s. The price spectrum will widen as more homes are built, adds Parisi, from the high $100,00s to more than $1 million.
“We are thrilled at the reaction Bexley has already received from potential homebuyers,” says Newland Communities Senior Vice President Alex McLeod in a statement. “Bexley is the result of years of planning and research.”
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