Neal Communities buys 788 acres in Alva for $34.1M

Neal Communities acquired 788 acres in Alva for $34.1 million in back-to-back transactions, a pair of deeds filed with the Lee County Clerk shows. 

Longtime Lee County families Cary and Duke sold their land two decades after first trying to sell it to Bonita Bay in 2006, only to have that deal fall through when the Great Recession began. 

The Povia-Flint families sold their portion of the land concurrently with Cary and Duke earlier this month. 

Parts of the land lie between North River Road to the north and the Caloosahatchee River to the south, just east of Babcock Ranch Road, also known as State Road 31. 

Combining the new acreage with about 200 adjacent acres Neal Communities purchased from D.R. Horton in 2023, known as Owl Creek, gives the Lakewood Ranch-based home developer the opportunity to build hundreds of new homes. The precise number of homes will depend on the sizes the company can sell, said Pat Neal, founder and chair of Neal Communities. 

“Most deals like this take four or five years, and most involve a lawsuit or lawsuits,” Neal said. “Almost everyone has a circuit court appearance. People don’t want any more houses. 

“I’m trying to have more patience than most public companies. Public companies have bosses, and those bosses have bosses.” 

In this case, Neal said he couldn’t close until he had all the permits. He said his company spent about $1.2 million on permitting fees. 

Neal said he sold his first home for $19,800 in 1970. Since then, he said his company has built about 27,000 homes in 147 different projects in Sarasota and Manatee counties over the past 56 years. Neal has built homes in Lee County, with Kingston off Corkscrew Road one of his latest projects. 

“The risks have become bigger,” Neal said. “It takes longer. And a house is much less affordable than it was in 1970. But people still want to come to Florida.” 

The newly acquired land was rezoned in March 2025 and entitled to allow a maximum of 1,099 dwelling units, along with private, on-site recreational uses and supportive infrastructure. Phase One will have 290 single-family homes and amenities, according to the development order. 

The homes will be clustered on about 315 acres, while 473 acres — 60% of the land — will be converted to retention ponds and conservation land, the development order states. 

Neal said he would try to balance the natural surroundings, restoring native habitat on legacy farmlands and creating empty spaces adjacent to the housing. 

“We will take the native pasture and return it to pine and palmetto, as it existed before clearing, cattle grazing, and before the property was civilized at the turn of the previous century,” Neal said. “By that, I mean returning the land to how it looked in the 19th Century.” 

Homes on the former Cary-Duke-Povia properties will range from $350,000 to $750,000, Neal said. The community would resemble Canoe Creek in Parrish in Manatee County and will have an array of luxury amenities, such as a pool, tennis, pickleball, bocce and walking trails. 

The adjacent Owl Creek community will have homes priced lower, between $290,000 and $450,000. Those will be marketed toward young, working-class families, Neal said. 

“They’re scheduled to break ground Jan. 2, 2027,” Neal said of the sites. The model homes would break ground about April 1, 2027, and the first homes would be ready in March 2028, he said. 

The Aug. 7 land purchase consummated a real estate deal four years in the making, one that generated controversy among dozens of Alva residents who spoke at public meetings against the density of homes approved during the rezoning process. The rezoning process before the Lee County Board of County Commissioners played a role in motivating one of those residents — Amanda Cochran — to launch her political career. She will be seated as Lee County’s newest county commissioner in November. She lost to incumbent Mike Greenwell in the District 5 primary in 2024, then defeated incumbent Trish Petrosky in the open primary Aug. 18. 

Cochran received 67,038 votes (55%) to Petrosky’s 55,392 (45%), according to the unofficial preliminary count — nearly double the combined 61,671 votes cast in the 2024 District 5 primary, when Greenwell defeated Cochran 55% to 45%. 

Greenwell and Petrosky each were appointed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis following the deaths of their predecessors. Frank Mann died in June 2022, and Greenwell died in October 2025. 

During that entire span, Neal Communities has had the Alva land under contract. It brought the land through the rezoning process, which was approved unanimously in March 2025. 

About 40 Alva residents asked Lee commissioners not to vote for a sewer extension that ended up being approved unanimously in January 2024 with no public discussion among the commissioners. 

The land’s history under the recent sellers runs more than a century deep. 

A handful of Lee County families began acquiring it in the 1920s, said Keith Cary, a retired Lee County Circuit Court judge who spent 31 years on the bench. His great-grandfather, J.C. Duke, moved to the area known as Alva from Kentucky in 1915. 

J.C. Duke ran “some sort of sawmill,” Cary said. 

“A lot of people were cutting timber back in those days,” he said. “So, that’s really the beginning of it. He had a son and a daughter. His daughter, Gladys, was my father’s mother.” 

The Cary-Duke parcel comprised approximately 475 acres. It sold for $20.6 million. Cary said he counted “about 21 adults” from multiple families who will share the proceeds. 

Charlie Flint and his family owned the 313 acres, known as the Povia property, before it passed to his daughter Mary Povia. That land sold for $13.5 million. 

The combined price of $34.1 million breaks down to about $43,000 per acre and $31,000 per dwelling unit, which in this case is the more important metric, said Matt Simmons, a property appraiser with Maxwell, Hendry & Simmons. 

“It’s actually pretty reasonable with where the market is,” Simmons said. “Overall, if we were looking at Lee County more broadly, we would expect to see maybe a lower price per unit in 2026 compared to 2022. No sale takes place in a vacuum. 

“What’s making the price on this consistent with the market is its location. It’s a highly desirable corridor to locate in. For development tracks, you have the continued development of Babcock. From a location standpoint, that made that land a little bit more valuable. Market conditions are down, but the location is more favorable.” 

Justin Thibaut, CEO of land brokerage firm LSI Companies, wasn’t involved with the sale. But he had been tracking it, wondering when it would close, for weeks. 

“While the circumstances surrounding the zoning and permitting for this property became quite vocal and controversial, I expect given Neal’s track record, they will deliver a nice product for this location,” Thibaut said. “The pricing for the land is commensurate with market norms and maybe slightly above, given that this deal was put together many years ago with varying factors like the cost of capital having increased through the course of this deal. 

“It’s nice to see that although this was a controversial zoning, through final permitting there will be a nice chunk of this property perpetually preserved.” 

A broker wasn’t involved on the family’s side of the deal, Cary said. 

“That was kind of the unusual thing,” Cary said. “We didn’t have our own broker. We didn’t have any signs up with LSI or Cushman & Wakefield or Fred Burson or anybody. We didn’t have any sign saying property was for sale. We were approached by Neal Communities. We didn’t market it.” 

Cary still lives in Alva. He said he understood why some of his neighbors didn’t want his family to sell the vacant land, which for decades has been cow pasture. But the growth and development accelerated with Babcock Ranch’s inception, Cary said, changing the dynamics of the area. 

“I’m glad it’s over,” Cary said of the sale. “It’s just inevitable. State Road 31 is going to be four lanes well before you know it. Babcock Ranch is just going crazy. They’re starting a second Publix up there. When I grew up out here, I was thinking who in the world is going to move out here? It was the middle of nowhere. Now look at it.”