Chris and Jan Land Developers (Part 1)



Aerial view of Elwood Park with arrow pointing to the Lot

About 5 years during the height of the real estate boom and about 6 months before it imploded we purchased 4.4 acres of vacant land in an area of Bradenton called Elwood Park.  Elwood Park was originally subdivided ~50 years earlier and at one time was an outpost on the Braden River that feeds into the Manatee just east of downtown.  The property belonged to an estate and had been "lost" for 50 years. For some reason someone had continued to pay the taxes and now there were over 25 heirs to the former estate. Apparently the guy had bought it as an investment, never used it, and died.  I drove by this property every day on the way to work and one day saw it was for sale - so I started to look into it.



8 lot subdivision concept

The thought was to sub-divide the property into 8 lots and sell off the lots and in the process making lots of money.  The property was approximately 300' (frontage) by ~600' deep.   It had never been developed and was heavily wooded and very overgrown.  The first time we attempted to walk the property it took us over 30 minutes just to get halfway into it.  Buying the property and walking through it turned being the easy part.


The first task was to clear the under brush which included an amazing amount palmetto bushes.  We took several bids and eventually ended up with a local firm.  Before bidding I encouraged each contractor to look at the property before hand whcih most of them did.  I also negotiated the hauling off of the debri as part of the deal (this would prove key a month later).  Others would just throw out and number and hope that it stuck.  I finally agreed to terms with one and they began clearing after a week or so. 

After two weeks of non-stop clearing and taking more away than thirty 30 cubic yard roll-off containers of debri I started to get some push back from the contractor.  In addition to alot of trash, they had also found over 200 tires on the property which apparently had come from the adjacent property over the years (but no way to prove it).  The place was so overgrown you could not see the trash or the tires.  He had underbid and was complaining about how he was losing money - the original contractor had also sold the contract to a buddy who was actually doing the work.  We finally worked it out after some haggling and he was gone.   I ended up spending alot of time at the lots after that hand clearing areas and taking another 5-10 truckloads to the dump.  Everytime I looked around I found more garbage and trash under brush and alomost all on the north side - it had become a dump for the neighbors after all those years.

More in Part 2 of Chris Amstutz the Developer..