By Laura Layden | Naples Daily News
NAPLES —
G.L. Homes is going bigger.
The developer – based in Sunrise on Florida's east coast – is
investing millions in a new community off Immokalee Road that will be
its biggest yet.
After its success with Marbella Lakes to the south, the developer is moving ahead with its next project, Riverstone at Naples.
The new project is rising on 640 acres, north of Olde Cypress, a
well-established gated golf community near Logan Boulevard, east of
Interstate 75. There will be 850 homes in the new project, to be built
over the next five years.
G.L. Homes was in a years-long legal battle with environmental groups
over the development of Riverstone — and another unnamed project behind
it that the developer won't build for five or six years.
Environmental groups — including the Conservancy of Southwest Florida
— were concerned about how the projects might harm the nearby
Cocohatchee Slough in northern Collier County. A truce was reached in
July 2010 with G.L. agreeing to save more wetlands and to restore
habitat for endangered wood storks.
Land development for Riverstone began in May.
"It has been approved for quite some time," said Patty Campbell, president of G.L. Homes' Southwest Florida Division.
Seven models are under construction, with another one on the way
that's undergone a few design changes and will be the largest — at 4,651
square feet.
"We're always tweaking things," Campbell said.
Besides the models, the developer will build 18 to 20 houses during
the next three months to be ready for buyers who want to be in their
homes before the busy winter season ends in April. The developer hopes
to sell 125 to 150 homes a year.
Riverstone is putting people back to work in Collier County. On
average, every new house that's built creates three jobs a year and
generates about $90,000 in taxes, Campbell said. That would equate to
2,500 new jobs and $76 million in taxes with the 850 homes that are
planned at Riverstone, she said.
Dozens of subcontractors have been hired for the project. If the
demand is as strong as anticipated, Gary Czajkowski, one of the
subcontractors, expects to hire at least 10 more workers.
"It's a boost to the economy," said Czajkowski, owner of Suntech
Electrical Contractors in Cape Coral. "It helps the non-working person
get a job. We're going to be hiring a lot of local guys."
Over the next decade, G.L. expects to build more than 1,500 homes between its two new projects in North Naples.
Originally, a man-made flowway was proposed that would have run
through G.L.'s two projects and another project called Mirasol planned
by a different developer. Critics called the flowway the Mirasol ditch —
after the biggest project that would have had the biggest effect on
wetlands. It was scrapped.
Riverstone isn't like anything else that has ever been done in Collier County, or anything else G.L. has done.
The community's entrance will elevate up to 10 feet. There will be a
nearly 40-foot monument wall with a cascading waterfall and a trellis at
the gated entrance, nearly 300 acres of preserves and lakes, a
resort-style clubhouse and "unbelievable recreational amenities,"
including an indoor sports court, a fitness studio and a tot lot, said
Campbell, the regional president for G.L.
"We've really taken it up a few notches," she said. "You will feel
like you are going into a community with multimillion-dollar homes,"
Campbell said.
Naples broker Ross McIntosh, a housing expert, expects big things from G.L.
"I expect them to have an interesting site plan and tricked-out models to offer and an engaging lifestyle," he said.
He describes G.L. as a cutting-edge developer. When it built an
indoor sports court at nearby Marbella Lakes, that was a novel idea.
"That's the kind of surprise that we have come to expect from them,"
McIntosh said.Only single-family homes are planned at Riverstone, from
the $300,000s to the $600,000s. The one- and two-story homes will be
more customized, with more detailed features than what's offered at
Marbella Lakes. There are 16 home designs. All lots are at least 130
feet deep. Lots are 52 feet and 67 feet wide, with some even larger.
All homes in the new community will include high-impact windows at
the front, richer elevations, granite counter tops in the kitchen and
bathrooms, and tile in the main living area, Campbell said.
"This is a lot of new product," Campbell said.
Marketing is gearing up and sales are slated to begin Jan. 28. On
opening day, the developer hopes to generate a line of curious buyers,
like it did when the sales center opened at Marbella Lakes off
Livingston Road in February 2009.
"We do expect that there is pent-up demand for this community, that
we will be very busy," Campbell said. "We already right now have a list
of over 1,200 prospects who are interested in the community."
G.L. Homes had success with Marbella Lakes, though it was launched in
the depths of a recession when so many other builders had their
projects on hold, said McIntosh, the Naples broker.
"They've achieved that success by offering value and pizzazz," he said.
In North Naples, he said, there's not much competition because there
are no other communities like this one coming out of the ground.
In 2010, G.L. Homes pulled 25 single-family building permits at
Marbella and the developer has pulled more than 60 this year, McIntosh
said.
"Their sales pace is accelerating and their price points have been
rising," he said. "They recently closed a home at Marbella for over
$600,000, a model home."
In 2010, G.L. started eight carriage homes at Marbella Lakes. The developer started more than 70 this year, McIntosh said.
"As far as Collier County is concerned they're in the top three or four in terms of sales velocities," he said.
At a little more than 100 acres, Marbella Lakes is a much smaller
community than Riverstone. It's nearly built out to its nearly 500-home
capacity.
"We have less than 20 single-family homes left and we have a little over 70 carriage homes left," Campbell said.
G.L. Homes has more control over Riverstone, which it developed from
scratch. It acquired Marbella Lakes from another developer that already
had designed the layout of the community and put in roads and
connections for water and sewer. After the housing boom went bust, the
project sat idle for a couple of years, overgrowing with weeds and
becoming an eyesore to surrounding developments until G.L. took it over.
With G.L. now building Riverstone, there's a fear that Mirasol will
"come out of the grave," said Andrew McElwaine, president of the
Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
In 2005, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected a permit for
Mirasol, sending that project and G.L.'s two projects back to the
drawing board. When new permits were submitted by G.L. without the
ditch, environmentalists still fought the developer's projects, saying
they would destroy too many wetlands.
As part of its settlement with environmentalists, G.L. Homes agreed
to expand its preserve area and to cut the size of its as-yet-unnamed
development behind Riverstone, from 1,600 to no more than 850 homes.
G.L.'s two projects were shifted more to the west, farther from the Cocohatchee Slough, McElwaine said.
"That will help keep the flow of that very old and long-standing
slough system. It will keep it intact and that was our goal," he said.