Hines buys Behnke Ranch for master-planned community in Pasco

BUYER: SR 54 Land Associates LLC, Houston
SELLER: Jean Behnke and Ann Pepper, as co-trustees of the Behnke Land Trust Number One
PROPERTY: 14721 State Road 54, Odessa and additional land, Tampa
PRICE: $21 million
ATTTORNEY ON DEED: Thomas M. Jenks Esq., Jacksonville

PLANS, DESCRIPTION:Houston-based real estate investment firm Hines purchased the 536-acre Behnke Ranch covering a mile on State Route 54 in Pasco County for $21 million.

The price equated to $39,179 per acre.

Hines plans to develop a mixed-use, master-planned community on the property. The land has approved zoning and entitlements in place to build 550 single-family homes, 200 townhomes, 440 multifamily units, 300,000 square feet of commercial space and 530,000 square feet of office/light industrial space. The new owner says design and permitting work is underway and construction is scheduled to begin in early 2014.

“Behnke Ranch was one of the most exciting large tracts of land available in the Southeastern United States, and it presents a terrific opportunity for a large-scale, high-quality master-planned community,” Hines Managing Director Lane Gardner says in a press release. “Tampa has bounced back swiftly with positive job growth creating significant demand for commercial space, quality single-family housing and apartments.”

Prosser Hallock of Jacksonville, who also worked with Hines on its Palencia community in St. Augustine, is providing master-planning services to Hines. Tampa-based Florida Design Consultants is handling the civil engineering, survey and permitting work.
Prudential Commercial Real Estate FL represented the sellers, the Behnke family.

Over more than four decades, Hines has master planned and developed 36,800 residential units encompassing more than 12,000 acres. Several high-profile master-planned Hines communities in the United States include: Somerset Green in Houston; First Colony in Sugar Land, Texas; Cool Springs in Franklin, Tenn.; Aspen Highlands and Five Trees in Aspen, Colo.; and Deerfield in Atlanta. It currently is developing Azure, a 308-unit multifamily community in Carillon Park in St. Petersburg as well as Ponce & Bird, a 276-unit residential complex in Miami. Hines also owns and/or manages more than 2 million square feet of office space in Florida.