Lennar adds to area holdings with $41M land buy in Hialeah

A Lennar Homes affiliate dropped $41 million on 130 acres in Hialeah, adding to its holdings near the future site of American Dream Miami.

Miami-Dade County records show the sellers are two LLCs led by Betty L. Dunn. Dunn, a large landowner in northwest Miami-Dade, sold 143 acres next door, also to Lennar, earlier this month. Financing for both deals was not recorded.

The land in Hialeah is zoned for agriculture and includes two large lakes. It borders Northwest 97th Avenue on the east and I-75 on the west, and borders Northwest 154th Street on the south. Directly north of Lennar’s Hialeah’s purchase is a 113-acre development site owned by Atlas Hialeah Heights.

In early January, Lennar paid $74.4 million for the Miami Lakes development site of Royal Garden Estates, a 505-home community with 267 single-family homes and 238 townhouses. That brings the national homebuilder’s total to 273 acres and $115.4 million spent on land in that portion of the county in January.

The properties are near the future site of the largest shopping mall and entertainment complex in the United States. Iranian-Canadian developer Eskandar Ghermezian has plans to build American Dream Miami on more than 200 acres of former cow pasture in northwestern Miami-Dade County. 

According to a 2005 article in the Miami Herald, Lennar is among the biggest owners of local farmland in South Florida on a list that includes Shoma Homes.

In December, Lennar bought a portion of Bonterra, a BBX Capital development site in Hialeah. The Miami-based homebuilding company paid $24 million for the 36-acre piece to develop more than 460 houses, townhomes and villas. And last week, Lennar paid $34 million for 151 acres in Royal Palm Beach to develop up to 385 single-family homes.