Lennar pays 20.08 million dollars for 109 acres in North Fort Myers, where Caloosa Commons is to bring 515 homes starting in the mid-200,000s

Money & World

The Editorial Team · July 31, 2026

Grey plastic drainage pipes of several diameters stacked in overlapping piles on bare dirt in bright sun, their open ends facing the camera, with lumber and a length of red and white barrier tape behind them.

Photo: Sergei Starostin / Pexels

What it changes

The useful number in this deal is not the headline price, it is the price per lot, and it divides cleanly enough to be worth doing. Lennar paid 20,084,383 dollars for land on which 515 homes are planned. That is 38,999.77 dollars a home, which sits within about six hundred dollars of exactly 39,000 dollars a lot across 515 lots, and a figure that lands that close to a round number per unit is the shape of a price negotiated per lot rather than per acre. Set that against a starting price in the mid 200,000s and the finished land is running at roughly fifteen percent of the cheapest house in the community, which is a normal ratio for entitled Florida production housing and tells a buyer something concrete: the cost pressure on that price point is coming from construction, insurance and carrying cost, not from what the builder paid for the dirt. The second number worth having is what happened to the land itself in two years. Uniland Development Co. bought about 135 acres at the site in 2024 for 12.75 million dollars, or roughly 94,400 dollars an acre. It sold 109 of those acres for about 184,300 dollars an acre. That is close to double, and the reason is stated in the reporting rather than being a matter of inference: Uniland secured entitlements in between, then marketed the site to homebuilders. Entitlement, not time, is what moved that price, and it is the same mechanic that governs every raw acre in North Fort Myers and east Lee County. The third thing this changes is supply, and here the scale should be kept honest. The Lee County Property Appraiser's preliminary 2026 roll, as of July 1, counts 279,664 single family residential parcels in the county and another 122,381 vacant residential parcels. Five hundred and fifteen homes is a rounding error against that, and nobody should expect a subdivision of this size to move county prices. What it does is different and more specific. It adds an entitled, amenitised, mid 200,000s product in a part of Lee County where most of the vacant residential inventory is scattered single lots rather than platted communities, and for a buyer priced out of Fort Myers or Cape Coral, a new build at that number with a clubhouse and a pool attached is a distinct option rather than an incremental one. The fourth point is the one to watch rather than act on. Twenty five acres of the original assemblage are being held back for shallow bay industrial buildings, with construction described as possibly beginning early next year. Industrial next to new rooftops is ordinary and usually benign at that scale, but a buyer in the first phases should read the plat and the approved uses on the retained parcel before signing, because the two parts of this site were entitled together and the industrial half has not been built yet.

A homebuilder has just paid about 39,000 dollars a lot in North Fort Myers.

Lennar has acquired 109 acres at the intersection of Littleton Road, U.S. 41 and North Tamiami Trail and plans Caloosa Commons, a community of 515 single family homes and two storey townhomes, Louis Llovio reported for the Business Observer on July 29. Adam Regan reported the same transaction for Gulfshore Business on July 30 (subscription), giving the purchase price as 20,084,383 dollars. The Business Observer put it at 20.08 million dollars, and the two are the same number.

Both outlets attribute the details of the community to a statement from Colliers, which represented the seller, Uniland Development Co. Prices are to start in the mid 200,000s. The amenity package is described as a clubhouse, a pool and bathhouse, pickleball courts and a playground. Llovio reported that Lennar intends to break ground late this summer, with home deliveries starting next spring; Regan reported construction beginning later this summer.

The site is part of a larger assemblage. Colliers said Uniland bought about 135 acres in 2024, with frontage on North Cleveland Avenue, Littleton Road and North Tamiami Trail, for 12.75 million dollars, then secured the entitlements and marketed the property to homebuilders before selling the residential portion. Uniland is retaining about 25 acres for a planned shallow bay industrial development, which Colliers will also lease, with construction that could begin early next year. Dan Miller, an executive vice president at Colliers, and Dan Rockenstein, a senior associate, represented Uniland.

No primary document is linked to this brief, and the reason is worth stating rather than leaving as an absence. A deed for a transaction of this size exists in the Lee County official records, and it would carry the consideration, the legal description and the recording date. The Lee County Clerk's records search at or.leeclerk.org and records.leeclerk.org returned no connection at all to the tools used here, and leeclerk.org itself answered with a refusal, so the deed could not be retrieved or read. The Lee County Property Appraiser's parcel search runs through form postbacks that the same tools cannot drive, so the parcel record was not read either. Every figure about the sale above therefore rests on two credited outlets reporting a broker's statement, and none of it has been checked against the county record. That is a real limit on this item.

What could be opened here is the county roll. The Lee County Property Appraiser's preliminary 2026 At-A-Glance, dated as of July 1, 2026, was read directly for this brief. It counts 571,234 real property parcels across Lee County, of which 279,664 are single family residential and 122,381 are vacant residential, and puts total taxable value for real and tangible personal property at 156,343,845,669 dollars against total just value of 217,727,315,012 dollars.

Two things this brief does not say should be said plainly. It does not report why Uniland sold or why Lennar bought, because neither company has said so in anything read here and motive is not something to infer from a price. And it does not describe the mid 200,000s starting price as cheap or affordable relative to the Lee County market, because the market reports that would support that comparison, including the Florida Realtors county series, were unreachable throughout the reporting of this item, and a comparison drawn from memory would be worth less than none.

Where we read it: Louis Llovio at Business Observer. Read their story.

The document: No public filing has been released.

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