Hundreds
of Luxury Homes Planned
for LPGA Community
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DAYTONA BEACH -- Hoping to revive LPGA International's
upscale image, a West Palm Beach developer has bought nearly
300 acres along the south golf course with plans for up
to 700 luxury homes.
Even though sales of expensive homes at
LPGA have stalled recently, developer Kitson & Partners
say a new $3 million tennis center, a clubhouse and other
improvements there will ratchet up demand in coming years.
Most of the homes are expected to be priced
well above $200,000 and some may approach $1 million, said
William McMunn, president of Consolidated-Tomoka Land Co.,
overseer of the LPGA project.
Kitson & Partners, teaming up with the
Morgan Stanley investment firm, paid Consolidated-Tomoka
$6.3 million last month to buy 261 acres in the southern
portion of the LPGA development.
Most of the proposed homes would be built
just west of the Tomoka River along the Legends golf course.
Others would be on a site off LPGA Boulevard, near the Ladies
Professional Golf Association headquarters.
"We have felt for quite some time that
this area is the right place to be," said Sydney Kitson,
a partner in the development group. "Jacksonville,
Palm Coast and other parts of North Florida are doing so
well, and we think this area will, too."
Kitson said his group's purchase encompassed
about 40 percent of the remaining residential acreage in
the 3,400-acre LPGA project area.
Kitson & Partners, which describes itself
as a turnaround specialist for underperforming real estate
projects, will not carry out any construction itself, he
said. Instead, it plans to resell the land to at least two
or three national builders for single-family homes. Some
of the lots will be reserved for sale to local custom builders,
he added.
Kitson & Partners' biggest project in
Florida has been a revival of the ailing Ibis Golf &
Country Club in West Palm Beach. It is also working on a
redevelopment of the former Boardwalk & Baseball attraction
in Polk County and has helped develop several Florida golf
course projects, including the Wedgefield Golf and Country
Club in Orlando.
Kitson said it was too early to predict
the exact prices for the new LPGA houses.
However, McMunn, who joined Kitson for a
two-day project planning meeting at the LPGA Conference
Center, estimated some of the homes would be roughly equal
in value to existing medium-priced homes in the golf resort,
while others would exceed the $800,000 value of the LPGA's
most expensive home to date.
"We're eventually going to have million-dollar
homes at the LPGA, but I can't tell you if it will be next
year or five years from now," McMunn said. Kitson said
his company hopes to start work on roads and utility lines
by mid-2003 and have model homes ready for prospective customers
by 2004.
No lot lines have been drawn yet, but McMunn
and Kitson estimated the 237 developable acres in the parcel
could be divided into about 450 to 500 lots bordering the
golf course and 100 to 200 others away from the course.
Some of the land will be used for playgrounds
and other facilities appealing to families, Kitson said.
"Our customers won't just be retirees from the Northeast."
The addition of Kitson & Partners gives the LPGA yet
another major developer for a project that has moved slowly
over the past nine years.
LionsPaw Development did the first wave
of residential marketing for LPGA, concentrating on selling
estate homes in the high $300s and up. In its highest-priced
enclave, the Grand community, it has sold lots for 11 homes
but still has about two dozen other lots sitting empty.
Five upscale houses also were built in the LionsPaw Nobles
section.
Sandy Bethune, a Top Flite Realty sales
agent who represents LionsPaw, said she welcomes the plans
Kitson & Partners has outlined for its portion of the
LPGA.
"It sounds like they're taking LPGA
back to the upscale concept it had at the beginning,"
Bethune said.
She believes the market is getting stronger
for the higher-priced homes, now that LPGA has opened a
clubhouse and conference center and has added a $3 million
U.S. Tennis Association complex. She said she has sales
pending for two more of the Grand lots.
Renar Homes, a developer-builder that has
focused on selling homes in the $100,000-$250,000 bracket,
has sold dozens of homes around the Champions course since
1999 and remains the project's most active developer of
neighborhoods. Regional manager Jeff Mottram did not return
telephone calls.
Mercedes Homes of Melbourne also has been
active, building in the Jubilee neighborhood on the north
end of LPGA.
Kitson
& Partners hasn't submitted any plans for the new neighborhoods
to the city.
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