Lerner splits from Maxcy to tackle troubled development districts
TAMPA — Latt Maxcy Corp., one of Florida’s largest landowners, has spun off its real estate operations.
Maxcy Development Group has been renamed Lerner Real Estate Advisors.
The emphasis on advisory rather than development services reflects today’s challenging commercial real estate market, LREA president Harry Lerner said.
Lerner bought controlling interest in the Maxcy unit but declined to share financial details of the transaction.
New entity, new focus
The new company is focusing on repositioning and restructuring distressed Community Development Districts, which developers use to finance infrastructure for large, master-planned communities.
These tax-exempt municipal bonds are supposed to be repaid through the assessment of independent taxing districts. But CDDs run into trouble when lots are bare or homes remain unsold, which began happening in 2007.
As of July nearly 200 CDD issues representing about $2.3 billion in principal have defaulted, extended their maturities or drawn on reserves, according to Interactive Data Corp. , a financial market data provider. That’s roughly 40 percent of the statewide number of issues and principal total.
A peak of nearly $1.8 billion of debt was issued in 2006 before crashing to zero over the past few years.
A growing number of players from the development community are becoming involved in CDD restructuring, said Leigh Kellett Fletcher, a land use lawyer at Stearns Weaver Miller in Tampa.
“Sophisticated parties are analyzing real property debt structure and finding opportunities in CDD communities,” Fletcher said. “They are restructuring and repositioning properties to be competitive in today’s market place.”
Six deals
LREA has completed six bond restructurings on behalf of CDD bondholders, including the New River development in Pasco County, Lerner said. The deals represent nearly $180 million in original value.
But such opportunities will not last forever. The universe of troubled CDDs eventually will get sorted out.
“As we wind down on CDDs, over the next year or so we see growth in other areas of asset management,” Lerner said.
LREA isn’t abandoning real estate development.
It is continuing to manage the portfolio of Latt Maxcy Corp., which will continue its own long history in agriculture, ranching and banking unabated.
About LERNER REAL ESTATE ADVISORS
Projects: The firm lists a half-dozen “featured projects” equally divided between the Tampa and Orlando areas on its website — including the last phase, 467 acres, at Meadow Pointe in southern Pasco County, the 65-acre Riverview Towncentre in Hillsborough County and the 36-acre Palmer Crossing in Sarasota. The company says it has sold or contracted to sell $79 million in commercial or residential projects over the past year.
Address: 3434 Colwell Ave., Suite 120, Tampa
Phone: 813.915.3449
WEB: http://www.lerneradvisors.com
About Latt Maxcy Corp.
The Latt Maxcy Corp. was formed in 1963. Its concept originated long before in the mind of Latimer Maxcy, born in 1887, in Columbia, S.C.
“During a camping trip in 1904, and after a devastating freeze, Latt observed that the citrus and vegetable crops around Lake Reedy near Frostproof weren’t affected,” the company’s website reads. “He persuaded his family to acquire 70 acres on the south side of Lake Reedy and set it out in citrus trees.”
By the 1920’s, Latt Maxcy’s interest expanded to the banking business. He and 20 other men formed the Citizens Bank of Frostproof.
By 1931, Latt Maxcy owned and operated the largest of several fresh fruit packinghouses in Frostproof, as well as an expanding citrus canning and juice plant next door. In 1935 he purchased an 80-acre tract in Osceola County to raise cattle, and which ultimately became the site of his ranch home and the nucleus for vast acquisitions of land primarily devoted to cattle.
By 1949, he had put together a cattle ranch larger than the state of Massachusetts. Approximately 150,000 acres, the ranch stretched from the Kissimmee River almost to Vero Beach.
Latt Maxcy was inducted into the Florida Citrus Hall of Fame by then Gov. Askew in 1971 and died that August.
In 1997, the company sold 45,000 acres of ranch land to the state of Florida and began a period of diversification into commercial real estate development.
Source: Latt Maxcy Corp. website
Source: December 9, 2011 - Tampa Bay Business Journal
