Master-planned community continues sales surge

Ave Maria, a 4,000-acre master-planned community in Collier County being developed by Barron Collier Cos., announced that it sold a record 400 new homes during the first half of this year.

The results from the community’s four residential builders — CC Homes, Del Webb Naples, Lennar Homes and Pulte Homes — represents a 113% increase from the same period in 2020.

The performance also ranked Ave Maria among the Top 25 best selling master-planned communities nationwide for the first six months of 2021 by RCLCO Real Estate Advisors, a research firm.

Data from RCLCO, which has been ranking master-planned communities in the U.S. since 1994, also concludes that Ave Maria experienced some of the largest growth of any master-planned community in the U.S. for the January 1 through June 30 period.

The first half sales also puts the community on pace for a 56% increase from all of last year, when Ave Maria sold 506 new homes, according to real estate research firm John Burns Real Estate Consulting. In 2019, the community generated 259 sales.

Homes in Ave Maria are priced from the low-$200,000s to over $500,000. Community amenities include a water park, soccer and baseball fields, a fitness center, amphitheater, dog park, walking trails and Bocce and tennis courts.

The community also includes a Town Center anchored by a Publix Super Market Inc. and private schools.

Upon completion, Ave Maria is expected to contain as many as 11,000 residences and up to 1.8 million square feet of commercial space.

Ave Maria’s surge comes as other regional master-planned communities also are enjoying robust sales.

RCLCO named Lakewood Ranch, in Sarasota and Manatee counties, as the nation’s top-selling master-planned community for the first half of 2021 based on 1,535 new homes sales — an 83%% increase from the same period in 2020.

The ranking represented the first time in the Schroeder-Manatee Ranch community’s history that it had reached the top spot in a mid-year report.