D.R. Horton plans to build 86 homes on Davie nursery site

Homebuilder D.R. Horton plans to redevelop a shuttered fruit tree nursery in Davie as an 86-home community with a mix of houses and townhouses.

The Davie Town Council on Wednesday approved a site plan for the development, a related plat proposal, and a “flex” application to increase the development’s allowable density.

Arlington, Texas-based D.R. Horton, led by President and CEO David Auld, also won preliminary approval on first reading for its proposals to rezone the development site and change its land use designation.

The 18-acre development site at 7250 Griffin Road is the old Spyke’s Grove and Tropical Nursery, which has closed.

Barbara Spyke is listed as the manager of the company that owns the nursery property, Davie Tropical Fruit Company LLC, according to property records and state corporate records.

D.R. Horton’s site plan for the property includes a dozen two-story townhouse buildings with a total of 51 units on the northern parcel of the development site, fronting Griffin Road, and 35 single-story houses encircling a 4-acre lake on the southern parcel, according to a planning report by the Davie Planning & Zoning Division.

The townhouses are designed with three or four bedrooms, and the houses with four or five bedrooms. All will have stone and stucco exterior finishes painted in earth tones. A proposed pocket park within the northern parcel of the site would include a tot lot, a pool, a pavilion building, and a “plaque at Griffin Road denoting Spyke’s Grove,” according to the planning report.

Fifty-one of the 86 homes that D.R. Horton plans to build required a separate approval by the Davie Town Council. In its “flex” application, the homebuilder successfully proposed building 51 more homes than the site’s zoning normally allows.

D.R. Horton also won preliminary approval of its proposed rezoning of the north parcel of the development site from “Agriculture” (A-1) to “Griffin Corridor District – West Gateway.”

In addition, D.R. Horton won preliminary approval of its proposal to change the land-use designation of the development site’s southern parcel from “commercial” to “residential 10DU/Acre” in the comprehensive plans of both Davie and Broward County. The land-use change would allow D.R. Horton to build houses on the southern parcel of the site.

Davie Mayor Judy Paul said city officials previously had considered various commercial uses for the nursery property, including a tractor dealership and a Buc-ee’s convenience store.

D.R. Horton is an active homebuilder in South Florida. Its other projects include Hunters Manor, a development of 59 single-family homes in Pompano Beach, and a 67-unit townhouse development in Homestead.