Meritage Homes is planning 31 homes for a 10-acre parcel in Winter Springs, in what will be the last project for the company’s Central Florida land development manager, Dante Fraiegari.
Meritage “may introduce a new type of project” with the development, said Fraiegari, although he declined to elaborate. The project in Winter Springs, to be called East Lake, will be Meritage’s second in that city. The home builder has close to 20 communities in the Orlando area, per its website.
The company is seeking from Seminole County a rezoning of the property to Planned Development from Residential.
A general contractor has not yet been chosen. Evans Engineering is the civil engineer.
The Winter Springs parcel Meritage plans to develop is on the southwest side of E. Lake Drive, south of Center Drive.
The property is under contract, with the current owners Santos Rivera of Orlando and Strong Intergroup Corp., a private business with mailing address in Sylmar, California, according to filings with Seminole County.
The Rivera and Strong Intergroup duo paid $325,000 for the land in 2000, records show.
Fraiegari declined to say what Meritage would be paying for the property or how much the project would cost to develop, but did say it would be a private community.
Plans are for construction to begin in the middle of 2017 and be complete six months later.
The land is heavily wooded, although the Seminole County Property Appraiser’s site lists on the parcel a 2,098-square-foot waterfront home built in 1979.
For Fraiegari, East Lake will be the last of 15 projects he got off the ground in the three-and-a-half years he served as head of Meritage’s home building operation in the Orlando area.
He will take a similar position with Meritage in South Florida.
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