NY Developer Acquires Last Lots in Master-Planned Community from Forest City

By Camelia Bulea, Associate Editor

New York-based Petrus Partners Ltd. recently announced the acquisition of the last undeveloped lots remaining in Gladden Farms, a 1,350-acre master-planned community in Marana. This is Petrus’ 13th residential land acquisition in Arizona since 2008.

“We plan to be the new master developer of the community,” said Dean Wingert, the new top local executive for Petrus. The new owner bought:

• 500 undeveloped residential lots in Gladden Farms Phase I;
• 370 acres of entitled residential land and 123 acres of commercial property in the Phase II section.

The seller was the Forest City Land Group, a subsidiary of Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises, Inc. The company launched Gladden Farms in 2003 and developed the master-plan community, which also includes a 58-acre hospital campus site sold to Community Health Systems Inc. in 2007, according to an official statement of Petrus Partners.

Circa 1,100 homes have been built on the site in the past 10 years by national builders like Pulte Homes, Lennar Homes and MDC-Richmond American Homes. The single-family homes at Gladden Farms are priced from $175,000 to $250,000, according to the community’s website.

Marana, located 24 miles northwest of the Tucson central business district, has been among Tucson’s best-performing submarkets in recent years. Together with Town of Oro Valley, it represents about one-third of Tucson’s new home sales.

Meanwhile, other big land parcels were sold in recent weeks in master-planned communities in the Tucson area.

According to Inside Tucson Business, a partnership of Lennar and Richmond American purchased 165 lots at Mountain Vail Estates, a 135-acre master-planned community in Vail, for $4.3 million. Additionally, Vistoso Holdings Two LLC bought a 26-acre infill parcel at Rancho Vistoso for $3.4 million.

Photo via www.gladdenfarms.com

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