[Villages Kahuna]

1. The new hospital which has been approved has a Wildwood address, but is nowhere near where we think of as Wildwood. The proposed new hospital is a 40-bed acute care facility which will be located on Rainey Trail (CR 472) roughly directly south of The Villages High School.

2. Is there really any evidence that the developer is in financial trouble? Construction of amenities, including the development of a third town square, have been initially financed by the developer with the developer quickly "repaying himself" with the proceeds from the issuance of revenue bonds. The bonds are issued by the commercial development districts, who actually are the entities that own the amenity or commercial properties. The bonds are privately placed for the most part and there is no evidence of flagging interest by investors in debt issued by the development districts.

3. The national real estate market is slow. But the market for the sale of homes in The Villages is nowhere near as badly affected. Homes are selling here at the rate of 275 to 300 per month. Is this pace down from the peak of a couple of years ago? Yes. Is that level of construction and sales comparable to the pace of the late 1980's and early 1990's? Yes. Does the developer appear to have his inventory of unsold homes well under control? Yes.

4. The latest schedule for the construction of Brownwood seems to be right on the original schedule estimated by the developer. In fact, it might be ahead of schedule. When Brownwood was announced, the developer estimated that it might take as much as a year to obtain all the necessary government approvals. And then, as I recall the timeline estimates, they didn't think Brownwood would be complete for several more years. The nearest Villages homes to the site of the new Brownwood are at least a mile away, with none at all built on the Brownwood side of CR 466A at all. Why would anyone consider the construction of a new commercial development when there won't be any customers anywhere near the proposed location for a couple of years?

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Posters here, particularly if they aren't residents or haven't taken the time to check their facts, should think twice about adding messages that could be both misleading and upsetting to other people.