Florida’s largest utility made a record-breaking land buy this year in Osceola County while the nation’s second-largest homebuilder was busy scooping up property all over Lake County in what ultimately ended as a banner year for land sales.

Florida Power & Light Company paid $212 million on Nov. 10 for the 40,000-acre El Maximo Ranch in south Osceola County’s Kissimmee River Valley. The utility company has not confirmed the future use of the property, but it’s expected to house what could become a solar farm. And it’s large enough to accommodate the largest solar array in the U.S.

The ranch, which stretches from State Road 60 to the Osceola-Okeechobee county line, was once part of a 150,000-acre cattle operation run by the iconic Florida rancher Latt Maxcy. The land was sold over two transactions in 2018 to the Investment Corporation of Dubai in 2018 for $144.4 million and was operated by its subsidiary, Generation Farms.

The previous owners kept the “El Maximo” name to honor the history of the ranch that had been run by the same family for four generations and added new crops such as potato, broccoli, tomato and watermelon while also planning for the possibility of a solar farm on the property.

The second-largest land buy of the year took place in Orlando’s I-Drive tourism corridor, where Intram Investments acquired 460 acres between World Center Drive and State Road 417 with plans to deliver a mix of retail, multifamily, and entertainment options in the shadow of Disney theme parks.

The company paid $96 million on Jan. 5 for the land, which sits within the World Gateway Center and had been owned for decades by longtime developer George C. Barley, who died in a 1995 plane crash. The vast property touches I-4 to the west, World Center Drive to the north (stretching across both sides of I-Drive), S.R. 535 to the east, and S.R. 417 to the south.

Of the total tract, 138 acres are developable, said Randy Hodge, Intram’s executive vice president. “Intram has had its eyes on the property for a long time,” he told GrowthSpotter. “The property is just so well-located — in the middle of everything, and there isn’t a parcel of this size remaining in the tourist district.”

Intram filed plans in July for a Marriott-branded resort community with a mix of timeshares, condos, and hotel rooms rising as tall as 400 feet. The developer also has sought to convert some hotel entitlements to multifamily to build up to 900 apartments on 33 acres within the PD.

On the residential front, no one made a bigger splash than Lennar Homes, which dropped $122 million this year just in Lake County. That included a record-shattering deal in Minneola’s Sugarloaf Mountain master-planned community, where the Miami-based homebuilder paid $77.2 million in early June to buy two subdivisions with entitlements for 812 residential lots from Richland Communities.

The sale comprised the first phase of the 1,420-acre Sugarloaf Mountain master-planned community.

The final sale price of $95,000 per entitled homesite stunned local developers who have worked in Lake County. Mike Galvin of CG Land Services said the price is closer to what developers are getting for finished lots, but it’s unheard of for land at the preliminary plat stage.

Lennar also made a $23.6 million acquisition of a 361-lot subdivision project in Groveland. The nation’s second-largest homebuilder purchased the Meadow Pointe and Hidden Ridge subdivisions in the Estates at Cherry Lake — a follow-up to the builder’s recently completed Waterside and Bellevue in the same master-planned community. The deal closed in July.

Lennar made another big land buy — this one $21.3 million — in Volusia County on Sept. 6 when it purchased phase 3 (221 lots) of Rivington, a master-planned community across from the DeBary SunRail station.

Sun Terra Communities paid $33 million in early November over several transactions for 304 acres known as the Chicone property along Clermont’s Wellness Way corridor.

The deal is a land banking arrangement on behalf of Pulte Homes, which took the property through its entitlement last year and secured approvals for a mixed-use Planned Unit Development with 948 homes and townhomes and up to 75,000 square feet of commercial uses. The community will be called Parkside Trails.

Max Perlman, vice president of land acquisition with Pulte’s Central Florida office, said horizontal development would start this month. “We expect to have models going up in the summer of 2024, with sales to begin in the fall,” he said.

Orlando developer Kal Hussein teamed up with Ashton Woods in September for a $23 million deal in Kissimmee.

Hussein’s Leeland Development LLC acquired the portion of Ham Brown Reserve east of Ham Brown Road. He sold the 565 residential lots to the Atlanta-based homebuilder, which will develop it under its moderately-priced Starlight Homes brand. The adjacent multifamily lot entitled for 300 units will be developed as a later phase.

“They’re aggressive in the market,” Hussein said. “Starlight is a big company that is privately held, so their ability to maneuver projects through tight timelines sets them apart from other production homebuilders.”

Two of the top land sales of the year took place in Apopka and Kissimmee for future industrial projects.

After a $48.5 million land buy, Orlando-based industrial developer Cadence Partners is ready to begin bringing job-generating warehouse space to what would be Apopka’s largest mixed-use project ever.

The company closed on 88 acres of property along the south side of Kelly Park Road on June 16. The land is part of a massive mixed-use project under development by Evans Properties called Wyld Oaks.

“We believe our sale price for industrial land per acre of $551,136 to build 1.5 million square feet is the highest price ever paid in Northwest Orlando,” said Joe Beninati, the project’s development coordinator with Evans Properties. “This step is a major lynchpin in our goal to have well over 3,000 jobs for those that live, work, and play at Wyld Oak.”

A commercial bread company and developer of cold storage facilities have paid a combined $23.5 million for 114 acres near the Osceola Parkway – Florida’s Turnpike interchange that was rezoned last year to allow for a million square feet of industrial uses.

The property, which spans both sides of Osceola Parkway, is known as the Constellation Planned Development after the rezoning changed it from mixed-use to industrial. The vacant land was owned by the heirs of the late Wendell “Jock” Spears, who was the original developer of the adjacent Walmart-anchored Gateway Commons shopping center.

Jared Bonshire, executive director of Cushman & Wakefield, was working with Constellation, and when they backed out of the deal, he quickly brought new buyers to pick up the contract.

The 68 acres on the south side of Osceola Parkway sold on May 30 to Karis Cold, a private investment and development company with expertise in the cold storage industry. The Naples-based company paid $12 million for the two parcels, which had previously been approved for a mix of commercial space and multifamily housing.

In June, DHI Communities, the multifamily division of D.R. Horton, acquired 114 acres along Boggy Creek Road for $26.4 million for a mixed-use community called NonaWest. The property was formerly owned by AdventHealth.

NonaWest is a master-planned community developed by D.R. Horton, which includes two phases totaling 756 apartments and 188 townhomes and commercial out parcels located immediately west of Lake Nona/Medical City on Boggy Creek Road.

Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at lkinsler@GrowthSpotter.com or (407) 420-6261. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook and LinkedIn.