Lennar to Build The Villages of Westport Near Airport
According to Duval County property records, Lennar Corp., a Miami-based publicly-traded company, has purchased 13 tracts of land or 1,260 acres near the Jacksonville International Airport from a series of individuals, companies and trusts in mid-December for about $9.6 million, in an area once proposed as a mixed-use development called The Villages of Westport.
Westport was proposed in 2000 as a 1,900-acre residential and commercial project bounded by Lem Turner Road to the west, Dunn Avenue and I-295 to the south and Braddock Road to the East. In 2001 and 2002, the developer of the project was to be Jacksonville-based Wildwood Properties Group Inc., but then-president Tim Shea dissolved the company in 2002, according to state records.
Although the area is just across Lem Turner Road from a busy airport, the swath of land is in one of Jacksonville's best-positioned areas.
Lennar builds about 36,000 homes a year nationwide at an average price of about $272,000.