After years of planning, nearly 200 acres in Mandarin will be developed as an active adult community and multiuse recreational park.
Everlake is a 192-unit active senior community and Aterro is a commercial and recreational development that will bring a new use to the closed Sunbeam Road Landfill portion of the site, including shipping containers for use at the park.
Work is planned to begin in the next few months along Craven Road, south of Sunbeam Road.
Jacksonville-based Stratagem Partners LLC, led by principals Jeremy Hill and John Thornton, plan to develop the property along with the Dream Finders Homes Active Adult Lifestyle division.
Hill amended the future land use designation and rezoned the property with a new planned unit development in 2018, after assuming the ability to develop the property.
The original PUD was 225 acres, which included the 27-acre Edgewater at Sunbeam Condominium property, developed in 2005-06, on the west side of Craven Road. The property was sold to develop the 134-unit condominium and removed from the original PUD in 2006.
The developer of the remaining 200 acres planned additional residential development south of the Edgewater community and planned a golf course to the east on the landfill site, which closed in 1986. Residential was not developed and economic conditions and storm damage interrupted completion of the Sunbeam Hills Golf Course, which planned to open in 2008.
The Aterro multiuse recreational park initially will comprise a farmers market with access from Sunbeam Road.
Future uses include a dog park; concessions with beer and wine sales; walking, running and biking trails; event areas; and restrooms. Other potential uses includes offices and pickleball, Hill said.
Structures at Aterro will be built from shipping containers, Thornton said.
David Smith, president of the Dream Finders Home Active Adult Lifestyle division, said the 192-unit Everlake community is expected to begin site work in December.
Everlake is planned for duplex units along the north, east and south sides of a lake and will feature a 2,000-square-foot clubhouse with a fitness center, meeting and multipurpose areas, pavilions, a pool, walking paths and outdoor green space and activity areas.
Deryl Patterson, president with Housing Design Matters Inc. of Jacksonville, is the architect of the 1,730-square-foot duplex units comprising two bedrooms, a flex room and a two-car garage.
Smith said the product is attractive for the Mandarin market by providing a home for elderly parents who want to move near their children.
“Homes will be turnkey, no maintenance and priced in the mid $200,000’s,” he said.
The project start “took longer than most projects because we wanted to make sure there are no issues with the landfill,” Smith said.
Studies including Phase I and II Environmental Site Assessments with testing wells and analysis were completed to determine if hazardous materials are present. “When we sell a house we don’t want a dark cloud over this. We needed 100% certainty that there are no issues with the property,” he said.
Smith said the group plans to buy the property from Stratagem in December and start horizontal construction at that time. He expects homes will be “coming out of the ground in spring.”
Everlake is the third Dream Finders Homes active adult lifestyle community with the others being the golf-oriented Scottsmoor at Halifax Plantation in Ormond Beach and the new recreation and nature-oriented Reverie at TrailMark near St. Augustine.
Reverie, Dream Finders’ “flagship” adult active lifestyle community, will have 550 homesites with private amenities that include a clubhouse, pool, event space, pickleball and sports courts, Smith said.
There is a “bigger picture in play for the active adult segment of Dream Finders Homes,” he said.
Stratagem, through Edgewater Jacksonville Investors LLC, bought the property Sept. 29 for $1.18 million.
