CC Homes and Turnberry are planning to launch sales this year and begin building The Estates by Turnberry, a gated community with 151 houses on the west side of Davie, across I-75 from Weston.
The Davie Town Council recently rezoned the development site and approved several other proposals by the developers.
“We’ll start sales in October, and we should break ground about that time,” Jim Carr, CEO of CC Homes, told The Real Deal.
The base price range of the single-family homes will be $1.6 million to $1.8 million, Carr said, and buyers will pay more for installing a swimming pool or adding a room to one of three models.
The houses will be built on 25,000-square-foot lots and will range from 3,400 square feet to 5,700 square feet — or perhaps more than 6,000 square feet with added rooms. Amenities will include a clubhouse with a community swimming pool, trails for walks and horse rides, and gazebos overlooking the wetland.
Most buyers will probably be locals looking to upgrade, such as owners of older homes in Weston, Pembroke Pines, and other Broward County suburbs within 10 miles of the development site, Carr said.
“It’s someone looking at a 20 [year-old], 25-year-old home, which needs a renovation, and will probably opt for a new home,” Carr said. “This stuff’s getting up there in age. There’s very little new product built in the last several years. Most of what’s been done have been very small subdivisions, not major planned communities.”
A company controlled by Turnberry paid $11 million in 2007 to acquire the site of the gated residential community, according to property records. The vacant, 151-acre site is bounded to the north by Southwest 20th Street, the south by Southwest 28th Street, the east by Southwest 154th Street (also known as Shotgun Road), and the west by I-75.
“This is a co-development between CC Homes and Turnberry.… CC Homes is leading this project on behalf of the partnership,” Aly-khan Merali, president and CFO of Turnberry, told TRD. Aventura-based Turnberry is led by Chairman and CEO Jackie Soffer. CC Homes is led by Carr and Armando Codina, founder and executive chairman of Codina Partners, which is based in the same building in Coral Gables where CC Homes is headquartered.
The Davie Town Council unanimously voted May 21 to rezone the development site from “agricultural” (AG) to “estate dwelling” (R-1) with an “open space overlay” designation. The design of the 151-acre development includes more than 60 acres of open space, and a sound barrier wall on a berm next to I-75.
The town council also designated the site as a community development district, or CDD.
“We find it much better to manage a community through a CDD, versus an HOA [homeowners association]. Basically, you can’t play games.… It’s a much, much cleaner structure. You know of the abuses in homeowners associations. The Real Deal has written enough articles about them,” Carr said.
Among other advantages of community development districts, they operate as sub-governmental agencies, so “the assessments [for community maintenance] are collected with the real estate taxes.”
Carr has a long history of development in Davie dating back decades. “We’ve done a couple of single-family [home] projects there. We’ve also done a couple of multifamily projects,” he said. “Before Armando and I formed CC Homes, my first community development was back in the ‘80s. It’s called Shenandoah.”
Carr said he and Codina currently are working on another development of single-family homes in Davie besides Estates by Turnberry.
“We have one property under contract where we’re undergoing due diligence,” he said, citing the suburb’s appeal. “Davie is centrally located. They promulgate good growth, not junk. And they’re good people to work with.”
