David Weekley and Värde Buy 606 Home Lots Outside Phoenix

David Weekley Homes and Värde Partners have paid $60 million for 606 lots for homes in two Phoenix suburbs.

The land bank joint venture paid $37.15 million for 334 lots at the Verrado master-planned community in Buckeye and $22.98 million for 272 lots at Ware Farms in Queen Creek, the Phoenix Business Journal reported, citing Vizzda.

The seller of the Buckeye land was Scottsdale-based DMB Development, the developer of Verrado. The seller of the Queen Creek land was an executive at Krombacher Brewery, based in Germany.

Over the two deals, the average price per lot is $99,224.

Brokers Nate Nathan, Casey Christensen and David Mullard of Nathan & Associates represented both the buyer and seller in the Buckeye deal. Carson Brown of W Holdings represented the owner of Ware Farms, renamed Soleo, in the Queen Creek sale.

The lot buys are the first for the new land banking venture by David Weekley, based in Houston, and Värde, based in Minnesota. David Weekley now has 14 housing developments underway across greater Phoenix.

“We have over 1,000 lots in the pipeline that are coming in the next 12 to 24 months,” Mark Weber, Phoenix division president for David Weekley Homes, told the Business Journal. “And I would say right now we have about another 500 lots in escrow.”

The lot purchases in Buckeye, 35 miles west of Phoenix, follow developments by David Weekley Verrado since 2015, including houses between 2,100 and 3,700 square feet at Verrado Highlands and Verrado Victory.

The firm is now developing Regent Hills, a gated community of 334 homes on lots it just bought that wraps around a small mountain, Weber said. The size of the future homes is undetermined.

David Weekley also plans to build 272 homes on the lots the joint venture bought in Queen Creek, a town nearly 40 miles southeast of Phoenix. Ware Farms, now known as Soleo, is a luxury master-planned community with a lake.

“It’s going to differentiate us from commoditized communities in the surrounding area — those are more standard, basic communities that have low design and low amenities,” Weber told the Business Journal.

The owner of Soleo is Petra Schadeberg-Hermann, co-managing partner of Krombacher, among the largest private breweries in Germany.

In a separate deal, Schadeberg-Hermann sold 105 acres of land at Soleo to AGWIP Asset Management, the land broker for Atlanta-based PulteGroup, for $28.65 million, or $271,719 per acre, according to the Business Times. Brown of W Holdings represented the seller.

Soleo could benefit from an influx of workers of LG Energy Solution, now building a 1.4 million-square-foot battery manufacturing plant in Queen Creek, where the Town Council recently approved plans for a Google Fiber internet network for the fast-growing population.

— Dana Bartholomew