INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Eight years ago, county officials approved the River Preserve, a mixed development of 23 homes and 78 condominiums on the Indian River Lagoon, southeast of U.S. 1 and 99th Street.
The owner has yet to sell a single unit.
Today a masonry wall marks the area along U.S. 1, three condominium buildings overlook the lagoon and the internal roads and utilities are mostly complete.
But nobody lives in the condos, there are no homes on the single-family lots and other buildings are still unfinished. It’s a familiar pattern amid the recession, county Senior Planner John McCoy said Wednesday.
But developers of the River Preserve are trying to move from the standstill by switching out the 23 planned homes for 96 more condominiums. If approved, that would increase the density from 101 dwelling units to 174.
Project engineer John Blum, with Vero Beach’s Carter Associates Inc., went before McCoy and other county planners this week to see if they would have an objection to switching the homes out for condos.
“We want to see what we can do to jump-start this and get some activity,” Blum said, “So we’re talking with Realtors and some developers up north to see if the market would support more condos, or perhaps rentals, and possibly do that. Nothing is set in stone.”
Real estate appraiser Adam Preuss, president of the Realtors Association of Indian River County, wished luck to the River Preserve but said he couldn’t offer any firm advice. Nothing has the edge in the current economy, he said, where experts point to 16,170 vacant homes in the county.
“I don’t think there’s any magic bullet,” Preuss said Thursday. “This thing (recession) has gotten real.”
McCoy said Blum may need to cut the number of new condos he wants. A 1.6-acre section on the lagoon is zoned for conservation, at one home per 40 acres, giving less land to work with.
“It doesn’t look like they’ll be able to fit in all 96,” he said.
McCoy said he has seen developers of large-scale subdivisions occasionally return to change plans as the housing market changes.
“But a project this size, with that extent of a change, is more unusual,” he said.
If the county allows a change, it would be the third plan since the County Commission in 2001 rezoned the same property area from one home per acre to six condominiums per acre.
Commissioners in June 2001 allowed 23 homes and 84 condominium units for the planned Island View subdivision.
That site plan expired, however, before any construction could take place.
Indian River Preserve in October 2003 got approval for the same 23 homes plus 78 condos, a reduced number. They were to be in nine buildings, accompanied by a clubhouse, swimming pool and a tennis court.
Blum said developers didn’t start building until 2006, however, after getting the appropriate permits from the St. Johns River Water Management District.
To get permission to fill or excavate 3 acres of the 12-acre wetlands on site, he said, River Preserve offset that destruction by restoring 12 acres of the nearby Lost Tree islands to native vegetation.
If the full-condominium switch isn’t practical, Blum said, his clients won’t drop the project. They’ll just hold on for a better economy.
“This developer is big enough to have the capital to be able to wait it out,” he said. “We’re not abandoning the project.”
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