As Pasco County becomes more suburban, land is becoming more valuable - and more scarce.
By JAMES THORNER
Published January 9, 2004
WESLEY CHAPEL - The price of farmland in Pasco County's hottest suburbs has doubled and tripled over the past three years.
The county's housing boom, centered in Land O'Lakes and Wesley Chapel, is placing a premium on ranches and groves suitable for subdivisions.
In 2000, Tampa developer Don Buck paid about $5,500 an acre for an 850-acre ranch near the Suncoast Parkway and U.S. 41 due to become the Oakstead development.
This year, Pulte Homes paid $16,000 an acre for 47 acres 2 miles northeast of Oakstead on Drexel Road.
Rising land prices are rampant along Curley Road in Wesley Chapel, too. Despite a lack of supermarkets and other services, tracts on Curley are fetching $12,000 to $15,000 an acre.
These parcels aren't the commercial variety. Pasco landowners have been cashing in desirable roadside frontage for more than $100,000 an acre.
East Pasco Medical Center, for example, agreed to buy 50 acres on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard for $5-million. Home Depot paid slightly more than $100,000 an acre this year for 13 acres at Eiland Boulevard and State Road 54.
The diminishing supply of residential land is pushing up prices. Developers say ranchers such as the Kirklands and Eppersons on Curley Road can drive a harder bargain than landowners could just three years ago.
"The prices out there have been unbelievable," said county attorney Bob Sumner, who has observed the land inflation from his office in New Port Richey.
Pasco government itself has helped set a higher bench mark. Last year it paid $12,000 an acre for 144 acres off Boyette Road in Wesley Chapel. It's the site of the county's next regional park.
In 2000, when Buck sealed the deal with a group of landowners that included rancher Milo Thomas, the current housing rush was just picking up steam. A price of $5,500 an acre for Oakstead seemed reasonable.
By January 2001, Lennar Homes Inc. was paying about $10,000 an acre for land at Curley and Wells Road, the site of its upcoming Bridgewater development.
A recent contract between Lennar and the Eppersons supposedly has pushed rural land prices higher. The Eppersons own about 1,400 acres west of Curley Road.
And K-B Home Tampa LLC has reached an understanding with the family of county Commissioner Ted Schrader for 1,034 acres east of Curley.
Such deals left Rick Neff, a Clearwater developer looking at the Kirkland ranch north of the Schrader land, complaining that little land was left for sale in Wesley Chapel.
Underpinning everything is Pasco's record-breaking housing starts in 2003. As of Dec. 1, the county tallied 5,387 permits for single-family homes.
That doesn't include hundreds of townhomes, duplexes and apartments, nor the 730 newly permitted mobile homes.
In Wesley Chapel, about 30,000 to 40,000 new homes are planned through about 2020. A similar number of homes, enclosed in megadevelopments such as the Bexley Ranch and Connerton, could rise in Land O'Lakes.
- James Thorner covers Pasco County growth and development. Reach him at (813) 909-4613, toll-free 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4613.
