Developer offers $1.5M for Florida City ‘Snakepit’

Blue Heaven Villas LLC is poised to buy 22 lots in a Florida City neighborhood dubbed the “Snakepit” because of the slithering creatures known to greet gas-meter readers there, the Miami Herald reported.

The developer, also involved in a separate redevelopment project in Florida City, plans to build 100 apartments on the site, where evidence of Hurricane Andrew’s devastation in 1992 can still be seen, the Herald said.

The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency bought the lots, totaling about 5.2 acres, for $1.35 million.

Blue Heaven outbid a competitor with a $1.5 million offer.

Principal George Howard took over a failed Florida City project in the same area, which he bought in foreclosure in 2010. There he plans to rehabilitate 24 existing homes and build 24 more, under the auspices of Tower View Town Homes LLC.

CRA director Richard Stauts is executing a purchase and sale agreement that allows Blue Heaven to defer paying for the parcels in full until the project moves past the construction phase into permanent financing, for an anticipated period of two years, the Herald reported.

At that time, Blue Heaven will be expected to pay the $1.25 million balance due on the parcels. If the project falls through, the parcels will revert to the CRA.

“Things take on a life based on what they’re called, and Blue Heaven Villas sounds a lot nicer to me than ‘Snakepit,’” Stauts told the newspaper. [Miami Herald] –Emily Schmall