The joint venture of Grosse Pointe, Bouwfonds Property Finance and Rapenburch, plans to develop and re-sell the lots to Levitt And Sons Inc. of Boca Raton, Park Square Homes of Orlando and the Orlando division of Calabasas, CA-based Ryland Homes. The builders are expected to develop a mix of townhomes, apartments and single-family residences on the site, people in a position to know tell GlobeSt.com. The development will be called Summerlake.

For the 10-year-old Grosse Pointe Development, the Horizon West land acquisition marks the second big-dollar purchase the southwest Florida developer has made in the past year. In 2004, Robert D. Hensley, founder and president of Grosse Pointe, paid $41.5 million to acquire the largely dormant 2,400-acre International Corporate Center, bisected by the Beachline Expressway in east Orange County, as GlobeSt.com previously reported.

The joint venture invested another $43.5 million in upgrading the property and preparing the industrial park site for a high-tech office and residential community. But the redevelopment is stalled by a long-range growth study being completed by Orange County.

At Horizon West, however, other builders are proceeding with residential development that is expected to grow the subdivision to 8,500 homes and 1.2 million sf of retail and other commercial space, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. The estimated $5-billion Horizon West undertaking is expected to take 20 years to complete. At that time, planners envision a new city of 60,000 permanent residents.

Horizon West's 38,000 acres are former citrus groves where choice orange and grapefruit trees bloomed for 90 years until back-to-back freezes in 1985-86 wiped out a large portion of the Central Florida's citrus industry. Horizon West is being jointly developed by Orange County and Horizon West Inc., a consortium of private landowners in west Orange County that includes Disney.