Walton, a real estate investment and land asset company with $3.8 billion under management and administration, has sold 282 partially finished residential lots in the Tortosa master-planned community located at 36227 W. Picasso St. in Maricopa, Ariz.
The property sale to D.R. Horton represents 282 of the more than 1,100 partially developed lots in Tortosa South. The Tortosa community features approximately 1,000 existing homes, and development in Tortosa South is likely to re-commence in 2020, with homes potentially under construction in 2021.
A Walton Managed Real Estate Fund originally purchased the Tortosa lots in 2014 from North Buckeye Properties IB, LLC of Phoenix, as part of an opportunistic distressed asset real estate fund that targeted land and vacant developed lots throughout the United States.
D.R. Horton, the largest homebuilder in the nation by volume, plans to build its Express Homes series as a continuation of its current residential offerings in Tortosa, with nine floor plans ranging from approximately 1,368 to 2,461 square feet. The floor plans can be viewed on Tortosa’s community webpage at https://www.drhorton.com/arizona/phoenix/maricopa/tortosa-45s.
The Tortosa community features an abundance of amenities including multiple parks, playgrounds, dedicated open space, a multi-use trail system for pedestrian and bicycle routes as well as neighborhood schools of Desert Wind Middle School and Santa Cruz Elementary School.
The City of Maricopa was the second fastest-growing city in Arizona in 2019, and its new $20 million Copper Sky Recreation Complex is just a short drive from the Tortosa community.
“We are excited about the recent activity we have seen on our Arizona assets. Tortosa is one of five transactions we have closed in the past month. In 2019, single-family permits in the Phoenix MSA and Pinal County showed a strong 9% increase from 2018, and we believe this market is going to continue to see positive momentum in 2020,” said Jen Ruby, SVP Land at Walton in Phoenix.
Walton’s 106,000-acre portfolio located in the United States and Canada, provides a scalable land acquisition platform to support homebuilders with just-in-time inventory management. Walton’s approach is an innovative response to secular shifts in the land development industry, which is increasingly challenged to finance acquisition with debt.
For more than 40 years, Walton has researched, planned, and structured pre-development land investments located in the major growth corridors throughout the United States and Canada. The evolution of Walton has opened the door to offering new products creating additional opportunities for investors and homebuilders.
