BH Group is selling a Wellington golf course to GL Homes for $62.5 million, which is three times what the firm paid just five months ago.
Aventura-based BH, led by Isaac and Liat Toledano, is under contract to sell the shuttered 150.5-acre Polo West Golf Course at 2470 Greenview Cove Drive to Sunrise-based GL, according to a source familiar with the matter.
BH bought the property in May, paying $20.8 million, after suing then-seller Glenn Straub’s affiliate, alleging it was backing out of their deal. The case settled.
GL, led by Misha Ezratti, plans to develop 284 luxury homes under Florida’s Infill Redevelopment Act, which was signed into law this spring. It gives developers the green light to build on brownfield sites or environmentally impacted properties that span at least 5 acres and are in densely developed areas, such as residential neighborhoods. The legislation allows developers to bypass public hearings and obtain administrative approvals.
Under the act, potentially qualifying sites include closed golf courses, vacant gas stations, warehouses, and aging shopping centers. The law protects agricultural, utility-owned and park sites.
GL representatives told residents of the Polo West Estates Homeowners Association this week that the homebuilder is willing to work with them, the Palm Beach Post reported.
If the HOA agrees to share its main entrance with GL’s project, the developer will build a new guardhouse, pay for a traffic signal and build a water feature at the entrance. The developer also left the option open for Polo West Estates residents to access the new community’s amenities, depending on the degree of cooperation.
But the homebuilder will pursue its plans one way or another, if the HOA isn’t interested or doesn’t respond by Nov. 24, the newspaper reported.
Home prices at the new project will reach $3 million.
“We need your cooperation but we have other options,” GL’s Larry Portnoy told neighbors during the Zoom meeting, according to the newspaper.
Jim Barnes, the Wellington village manager, told residents that based on the municipality’s review, GL can build the project under the infill act, which precludes the village from blocking the development.
Across South Florida, municipalities have decried Florida lawmakers’ passing of laws that erode counties and cities’ home rule — the right to self-governance — with laws like the infill act, the Live Local Act and the Resiliency and Safe Structures Act.
Polo West Estates homeowners have raised concerns about more traffic, environmental protection and the loss of the vacant golf course.
Elsewhere, BH is partnering with Lennar on a 103-home single-family home project on the Greenview at Presidential Estates golf course near Aventura. The first 30-home phase is finished and sold out.
GL Homes also plans to use the Infill Redevelopment Act for its planned project on the Village Golf Club in Royal Palm Beach course, the newspaper reported.
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