Starwood purchases 5,400-lot portfolio

BRADENTON - Starwood Land Ventures LLC has finalized the purchase of 5,449 residential lots and 36 model homes in Florida from TOUSA, a land developer based in Hollywood, Fla., that filed for bankruptcy in 2008.

After winning a contested auction over two other bidders this January with a bid of $81 million, Starwood Land Ventures, a Bradenton-based real estate investment firm, gained approval for the purchase from a U.S. bankruptcy court late in January.

Starwood subsequently sold more than 2,700 of the home sites in 38 communities to Lennar Corp. The sites are in first-time homebuyer, master-planned, active adult and premier golf course communities in the Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville and Southeast Florida markets where Miami-based Lennar plans to build single-family homes, townhomes and garden villas priced from the low $100,000s.

“After more than a year of tremendous effort by an excellent team of employees and consultants, we are extremely pleased with the acquisition of the TOUSA Florida assets,” said Mike Moser, east region president of Starwood Land Ventures.

“After a tough few years in Florida’s residential real-estate market, the high level of interest we have seen in these properties from builders and our own extensive due diligence has given us a high degree of confidence we will see the recovery of these assets as they emerge from bankruptcy amid a stabilizing real estate market.”

Starwood Land Ventures now owns approximately 13,100 home sites with more than 6,400 of these within 50 Florida communities. Additionally, the company owns more than 6,700 home sites in Phoenix and California.

Starwood Land Ventures is a Bradenton-based residential real estate investment firm focused on land acquisition, development and financing nationwide. The firm is primarily funded by an affiliate of Greenwich, Conn.-based Starwood Capital Group Global, a privately held international real estate investment firm founded in 1991.