After entering into the Central Florida housing scene a few years ago with a land buy in Clermont, Minnesota-based Summergate Development wants in on the residential construction activity erupting in Apopka’s Kelly Park Interchange District.
The land development company is prepping 41 acres of property to the immediate west of the Rock Springs Golf Course community, east of Plymouth Sorrento Road, for a 79-home subdivision called Acuera Estates.
Summergate intends to get all of the necessary approvals in place for a subdivision with 75-foot lots and then develop and market the finished lots to a homebuilder.
“Apopka is just blowing up,” Jim Atkinson, the senior land specialist with the company’s new Clermont office, told GrowthSpotter. “It’s got great access to S.R. 429 there. We like the whole Kelly Park interchange. I’m glad that we could get our foot in the door and get some business going there.”
The project has been in the pipeline for more than a year. The Apopka City Commission approved a rezoning request for the two subject parcels in early December of 2021, switching the land use from transitional to planned development.
The city’s development review committee gave final approval to construction plans drafted by Kimley-Horn in August.
On January 19, Summergate submitted a permit application to the St. Johns River Water Management District related to the project. The company has not yet acquired the land.
According to deed and property records, Evergreen Settlement, a company that provides real estate and title services, currently owns both parcels. An entity managed by Susan Chang, the company’s president, has owned the largest of the two tracts since 2009 when she bought it for $1.025 million.
The other parcel was purchased by a Chang-managed entity in 2015 for $595,000.
While based in Minnesota where most of its projects are located, Summergate entered the Central Florida market a few years ago with plans for a subdivision on 24 acres just south of John Lakes Road.
The initial submittal to the city in June of 2019 called for up to 96 units, but it was ultimately scaled down to 56 units with 85-foot lots.
“We tried to go through the process with having 50 (foot lots); we tried 62 and 75 and we got shot down every time by the city,” Atkinson said. “So we ended up just following code, and code allowed for 85-foot lots. We just rolled with that.”
Summergate acquired the Clermont property in December of 2020 for $2.19 million. Virginia-based Ryan Homes has since been tabbed to build out the Bella Terra subdivision, which is under construction, according to the home-builders’ website.
Homes will be priced in the upper $400’s and range from 2,300 and 3,800 square feet, the website says.
The community in Clermont is a short drive from where the sports-themed Olympus mixed-use community is underway. Plans for Olympus call for up to 1,312 hotel rooms; 805 townhomes; 614 apartment units; 155,642 square feet of office space; 360,358 square feet of retail space and 345,283 square feet of medical office space that will feature spa services and holistic programs as well as centers that provide orthopedic injury diagnosis, rehabilitation services and physiology, nutrition and conditioning programs.
Meanwhile, Summergate’s second Florida site, Apopka, is bustling with new development activity, particularly within the Kelly Park interchange district which stretches across both sides of S.R. 429.
Mike Galvin’s 205-acre Crossroads at Kelly Park community will include 675 single-family units, with some built by Dream Finders Homes, and 300 multifamily units.
Just to the west of Plymouth Sorrento Road, Evans Properties is working to deliver the city’s largest mixed-use community to date with more than 2,900 apartments and over a million square feet of retail, commercial, and industrial space.
Pulte Homes is pursuing what could become its second residential community in the Kelly Park Interchange district, seeking to bring another 140 homes to 40 acres at 3100 Ondich Road and 5704, 5706 and 5708 Plymouth Sorrento Road.
Recently, California-based homebuilder KB Home submitted plans to the city for 150 townhomes and 27 detached homes on 45 acres at the southwest intersection of Kelly Park Road and Chandler Road. That amounts to 5 units per acre.
Earlier this month, California-based Landsea Homes closed on a 39-acre site off Kelly Park Road for $2.75 million with plans to build a 113-lot subdivision called Oak View. Land development. Land development is anticipated to begin this spring and sales are slated to begin in early 2024, according to a news release from the homebuilder.
Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at (407)-800-1161 or dwyatt@GrowthSpotter.com, or tweet me at @DustinWyattGS. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
