The Wellington investor who bought Port St. Lucie’s upscale Tesoro development out of bankruptcy has grand visions for the community — and they don’t center on golf.

Glenn Straub, a polo magnate in Palm Beach County, hopes to bring a giant equestrian complex to Tesoro at the southern edge of St. Lucie County.

He wants to build barns, show rings, training rings — and everything else needed for the high-end horse crowd.

“It will be a satellite to Wellington, and we’ll have shows once a week,” said Straub, who owns Palm Beach Polo Golf & Country Club in Wellington.

To accommodate the Port St. Lucie complex, he’s in talks to buy more property just east of Tesoro, which sits north of Becker Road. He hasn’t decided how many acres, he said.

The goal is to have the equestrian digs up and running in time for season next year.

Meanwhile, Straub said he’s working to restore contracts with landscapers and other maintenance firms that had expired while Tesoro was under bankruptcy control for three months.

“We’ll just put it back up to where it was, but this time it will be financed properly because we’re a debt-free company,” Straub said of the development.

He hopes to lure new homebuyers with the equestrian pitch.

Tesoro’s developer Celebration-based Ginn Co. filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection for the community in December in West Palm Beach.

It started building Tesoro in 2003, bringing an unprecedented scale of luxury to Port St. Lucie. But sales slowed with the economy, Ginn defaulted on its loans and ultimately walked away after about 140 homes were built.

Last month, the court approved the sale of Tesoro’s assets to Straub’s West Coast Investors LLC. He paid $10.99 million for 353 lots, a golf course and another golf course lease, 11 acres of commercial property, a racquet club and a clubhouse.

Straub describes the 115,000-square-foot clubhouse as “a new Breakers.”

Where others see wreckage, Straub sees deals in this economy. His strategy is “to go out and buy assets.”

That’s what he did 20 years ago when the economy was slumping, he said.

Tags: bankruptcy, club, court, development, Economy, Glenn Straub, golf, Palm Beach Polo, polo, property, roads, tesoro

This entry was posted on Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 9:42 am and is filed under Economy, Port St. Lucie, St. Lucie County, Treasure Coast business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.