SURF CITY — Alabama-based developer Marion Uter, principal of Surf City Properties LLC, has acquired a $20.8 million loan to fund the construction of 415 single-family lots on 158 acres of land just west of the Intracoastal Waterway and Surf City’s new 3,600-foot high-rise bridge.
The master-planned community will be known as Waterside.
According to company spokesman Eric Kalis of Trez Forman Capital, a Florida-based commercial mortgage lender that provided the loan, national homebuilder D.R. Horton has secured a contract to purchase the first 170 lots on 65 acres within the overall site. He said Trez Forman plans to secure a buyer for 245 additional lots.
RELATED: 190-acre Waterside development raises pollution concerns for Water’s Bay in Surf City
The new round of financing pays off an existing $2.5 million land loan provided by Trez Forman to cover land development costs for the 415 single-family lots, according to Kalis.
“This transaction continues our aggressive push into North Carolina neighborhoods that have substantial opportunities for new development,” Trez Forman President and CEO Brett Forman said.
Kalis said Surf City was attractive to buyers from the nearby Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, which has more than 47,000 personnel, and for families working in Jacksonville and Wilmington.
In 2015, Surf City Town Council approved the rezoning of the 240-acre tract located near the intersection of Belt Road and N.C. Highway 50. It was pitched at the time as a “community within itself” that would contain over 3,200 residential units and four acres of commercial property. It is currently unclear if the project will be fully developed according to these original plans.
The total purchase price of 195 acres of the rezoned land was $6.25 million, according to Kalis. Former Surf City Planning Director Todd Rademacher said in August 2018 that the 240-acre tract had originally been owned by the Sullivan brothers, longtime local property owners.
Last December it was announced that Allan Sullivan donated a 3-acre parcel of land adjacent to Publix for a new town hall. This came nearly three months after major flooding during Hurricane Florence caused extensive damage to the previous town hall located on Topsail Island.
Mark Darrough can be reached at Mark@Localvoicemedia.com
