Bradenton home of 130-year Pelot’s pharmacy up for sale

Punta Gorda

Potential future owner of Tampa Bay Rays buys SWFL land

Could the Tampa Bay Rays be building a new stadium in Punta Gorda? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean the company owned by the baseball team’s purported new owner isn’t buying up land in the Charlotte County locality. Dream Finders Homes, the company owned by Jacksonville homebuilder Patrick Zalupski, recently closed on several vacant lots on Turnleaf Boulevard. According to Charlotte property records, the company paid $2.06 million for the land. The parcels are in Turnleaf, a 426-acre master-planned community under construction along Burnt Store Road off of Interstate 75 and U.S. 41. Dream Finders is one of the homebuilders named by the master-planned community developer that will build about 1,735 homesites there. Zalupski is leading a team of investors reportedly closing on the purchase of the Rays baseball team, possibly next month. The team has been valued at $1.7 billion. He is the founder of Dream Finders which, according to the company’s website, operates in 220 communities in 10 states and has closed on more than 38,000 homes since its founding. In 2024, the company says it closed on 8,583 homes and had pre-tax income of $438 million. As of the end of 2024, it controlled nearly 55,000 lots. Forbes magazine estimates Zalupski's net worth at $1.4 billion.