TAMPA PALMS - Work began this week on 80 townhouses off Amberly Drive, on some of the last undeveloped acreage in Tampa Palms' oldest area.
The $20-million Townhomes at Tampa Palms will fill the 8 acres remaining next to the Palma Vista condominiums, just west of Somerset Professional Park.
Along with the townhomes, builder Bayfair Properties will add a new clubhouse and pool, and will convert Palma Vista's facilities into a fitness center, said David Seidenberg, vice president for sales and marketing at Bayfair.
Owners in the 40-unit Palma Vista will have membership in the clubhouses.
A first order of business was the clearing of trees. Then Bayfair will dismantle the streets and pipes installed 10 years ago for the remainder of Palma Vista, which never was built.
"We decided that the best way to proceed is to pull out all the old infrastructure," Seidenberg said.
In place of the weeds and trash that long plagued the land, Bayfair plans to build Mediterranean-style townhouses with barrel-tile roofs, Seidenberg said. They will range in size between 2,008 and 2,270 square feet, and in price between $212,000 and $280,000. Each will have three or four bedrooms and most will have master suites downstairs.
They will be larger than conventional houses in a half-dozen Tampa Palms neighborhoods. But owners won't have lawns to maintain. Typical buyers will be empty-nesters or young professionals.
Seidenberg said Bayfair hopes to build and sell all 80 townhouses in the next two years.
"We're already well over 10 percent sold out," he said.
Bayfair looks for "infill" properties, vacant land surrounded by development, Seidenberg said. In North of Tampa, it is building houses at Keystone Shores off Gunn Highway, New Floresta off Lake Magdalene Boulevard, Stillwater off Lutz-Lake Fern Road and the Lakeside Preserve, behind Carrollwood's Mission Bell Plaza.
