Avanti Properties Group fund buys defunct Artesia community

BUYER: Artesia Naples (Master) ASLI VI
SELLER: WCI Communities LLC
PROPERTY: various tracts, The Plat of Artesia Naples (Tower Road & Barefoot Williams Road, Naples)
PRICE: $4.32 million

BUYER: Artesia Naples (Village Homes East) ASLI VI LLLP,
PROPERTY: various units, Village Homes East condominium, Naples
PRICE: $466,757

BUYER: Artesia Naples (Mansions North) ASLI VI LLLP,
PROPERTY: The Condominium of Mansions North at Artesia Naples condominium, Naples
PRICE: $213,598

LAW FIRM ON DEED: Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP, Atlanta

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: Avanti Strategic Land Investors, an institutional fund of Winter Park-based Avanti Properties Group, purchased 262 acres in the partially developed residential community of Artesia for a total of $5 million.

The price equated to $19,083 per acre.

The gated residential development, planned by WCI Communities, was only partially developed. The purchase included infrastructure, 89 finished lots, 78 completed homes, and entitlements to develop a total of 725 residential lots.

Clay Taylor and David Hitchock of Coldwell Banker Commercial Saunders Real Estate in Lakeland handled the transaction.

The property was never actively marketed according to the brokers. Instead, Avanti Properties Group approached WCI Communities with an offer to buy it.

“This is going to be a hold for them,” Hitchock says. “It's in a good area of Naples and there isn't a lot of land left there.”

Avanti Properties Group is one of the nation's largest investment firms focused exclusively on land investment, development, and finance. Avanti's institutional funds, operating under the Avanti Strategic Land Investors name, have committed more than $1 billion to residential, commercial and industrial land in more than 25 U.S. markets.