Construction is expected to begin this summer on Silver Lake Club, a 233-home subdivision on the site of the dormant Silver Lake Golf and Country Club in Leesburg.
The 104-acre site north of Morningside Drive, south of Jackson Road and west of Silver Lake Drive had been slated for redevelopment since the golf course closed in 2008. Officials approved rezoning and annexation into the city of Leesburg in 2015, but the site has remained undeveloped.
Richard Wohlfarth of Wohlfarth Consulting Group is in the process of closing on a purchase of the property from Hartman Golf Management of Ponte Vedra Beach and Leesburg city commissioners approved slight changes to the original plans in September.
“Leesburg has a demand for good quality housing,” Wohlfarth told GrowthSpotter. “This is a great location. If you look at the growth of Lake County, a lot of that is from Orange and Seminole counties moving west. I think it’s a good time for development in that area now.”
Wohlfarth scrapped plans to include town homes in the mix; Silver Lake Club will be exclusively single-family homes. Additional green space was also added to the project.
Wohlfarth applied for an environmental permit for phases 1A and 1B of the project on Feb. 11. Those phases make up the first 51 acres on the south side of the project and involve 116 homes.
Lot sizes in the gated community are all 125 feet deep, with 50-foot, 60-foot and 100-foot widths. Homes will likely range from 1,600 or 1,700 square feet to as large as 3,000 to 4,000 square feet. Prices would range from $250,000 to $350,000.
“Our goal is to start construction probably toward the end of the second quarter of this year, and to build the southern half of the project this year and the second half next year,” Wohlfarth said.
Builders have been selected, but Wohlfarth said he couldn’t yet reveal them. Wohlfarth Consulting Group of Altamonte Springs is serving as both civil engineer and surveyor, and Bio-Tech Consulting of Orlando is the environmental consultant.
Neighbors largely opposed the conversion of the golf course, which opened in the 1920s, but developers won over city commissioners with tweaks to the project design, mainly the addition of green space, and the potential for economic development. The vote to approve the annexation and rezoning in 2015 was a unanimous 5-0.
“The market has gotten stronger in that area in the last couple of years,” Wohlfarth said.
Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at Newsroom@GrowthSpotter.com or (407) 420-6261. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
