When Yona Lunger moved to North Miami Beach in 1998, the Orthodox Jewish community numbered fewer than 300 families. Today, it’s large enough to sustain 15 synagogues within a few miles of each other.
“It’s jam packed,” Lunger says. “Bursting through the seams.”
Lunger is a real estate developer and vice president of the Greater North Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce. As the housing crisis deepened, community members asked him to help find a place the growing community could afford. He found it about two hours away on 525 acres on the northwest side of Lake Okeechobee.
He hopes to see Lakefront Estate’s first 150 houses welcome residents this October. The Glades County development is being marketed as “a vibrant community with strong values and all the amenities and services a beautiful family needs.” It will have 1,000 single-family homes and 389 rental units “designed by a leading frum architect” for orthodox Jewish families. That means kosher kitchens with separate sinks for meat and dairy dishes.
It will have two synagogues, two schools — one for boys and one for girls — a mikvah, or ritual bath, along with medical, office and retail space.
And it’s likely to be the first of several frum, or pious, communities coming to the area. Lunger says 900 families have paid a $5,000 refundable deposit to reserve a lot and he has obtained more land nearby. The demand is driven by orthodox family structures. They tend to have more children and marry younger, creating a consistent need for new homes.
But he stresses the community is not restricted, which wouldn’t be legal.
“It’s open to anybody,” Lunger says. “You can buy it and you don’t have to be Jewish to buy it. Why would you want to live in an area where there are shuls and yeshivas? But if you want to, you can.”
Glades County approved creating a community development district for Lakefront Estates last year, allowing the developers to issue up to $132 million in bonds to cover infrastructure and other costs, records show.
Lunger says the remote Glades County site wasn’t chosen as an escape, but it fit what the orthodox community wanted.
“There’s a lot of land and there’s a lot of acreage undeveloped,” Lunger says, “And it’s affordable.”
Prices start at under $500,000.