DADE CITY - Summit View is 135 acres of dirt and weeds on the west side of Dade City. Zoned for more than 400 homes, it stalled years ago when Pasco County's housing market collapsed.
So imagine the surprise at city hall when the developers strolled in and told planning officials they were ready to move forward.
"They came into our office in December and said they wanted to resubmit the plat for approval," City Attorney Karla Owens said. "They said they're going to start building soon, and they think they can sell houses up there."
City commissioners approved the plat, but they likely will be waiting years before any new homes pop up on Happy Hill Road.
Getting the plat approved was a strategic move by developer Douglas Weiland to get a cash infusion for his beleaguered company, JES Properties. JES has a $19.4 million contract with Standard Pacific for Summit View.
"One of my contractual obligations was to get the plat approved," Weiland said. "Standard Pacific had a deadline to make a milestone payment in March."
During Pasco's real estate boom, the former spinal surgeon bought hundreds of acres of empty land, from Odessa to east Pasco, for development.
He borrowed heavily, planning to sell the land quickly to other builders. When the real estate bubble burst, though, and the banking industry collapsed behind it, Weiland found himself mired in debt with few options for getting out.
Weiland received a foreclosure notice Thursday for Ashley Glen, a 260-acre site at State Road 54 and the Suncoast Parkway where he planned to build a 1.8 million-square-foot office complex supporters see as a magnet for high-wage employers.
He has virtually abandoned a residential project south of Zephyrhills on U.S. 301 and another north of Plant City in Hillsborough County.
Now, Weiland is banking on contracts with homebuilder Standard Pacific and apartment builder Wood Properties to provide a lifeline for his company, despite the fact that residential developers have walked away from him before.
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Courtesy of TBO.com
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