Kendall-based LuckyStart paid the biotechnology firm $30 million for 53 vacant acres on July 30, according to CB Richard Ellis First VP Michael Silver, who represented Beckman Coulter. The sale price for the site, zoned for industrial and commercial use, breaks down to about it $13 a square foot. Large industrial parcels in the market are rare and smaller tracts are trading for more than $20 a square foot, real estate brokers said.

Beckman Coulter (NYSE: BEC) will continue to operate in the five buildings it occupies on the eastern half of the site just north of Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport. It acquired the entire 103-acre corporate campus, at 11800 S.W. 147th Ave., for $12.7 million in 1991 through a national auction. The firm then sold and leased back its 500,000 square feet of buildings in 1998 to Cardbeck Miami Trust, which is controlled by Cardinal Capital Partners in Dallas.

LuckyStart, which began developing commercial spaces last year, is planning a mixed-use project on the site, according to its real estate consultant and broker, David Dabby, president of Coral Gables-based Dabby Group. The exact scope has yet to be determined, he said, but the project is likely to include office, residential and light industrial uses. This latest acquisition marks the fifth and largest commercial undertaking for LuckyStart, which has developed more than 1 million square feet of residential space since it 1988 inception.

“Basically, it is a diversification, but it is also creating a long-term investment for LuckyStart,” Dabby said. “Residential development is a sellout of property. They are seeking to diversify into income producing properties.”

LuckyStart is to deliver two of six planned industrial buildings this month at the Lucky-Start Biz Center on 10 acres at Southwest 120th Street and 142nd Avenue in Kendall. The first two buildings are more than half pre-leased, said Carlos Altimari, the project’s marketing agent.

Beckman Coulter’s vacant land drew a bevy of interest and nine offers when it hit the block in late 2005 because it is such a large infill parcel in a county with a rapidly dwindling supply of land. It’s also tucked inside the county’s urban development boundary, an imaginary line used by officials to control urban sprawl west and south into the Everglades.

“Industrial-zoned land is extremely scarce throughout Miami-Dade, and there was really nothing of this size or type available,” Silver said. “This was like a diamond in the rough.” This vacant land in development-congested Miami-Dade County was first snapped up in spring 2006 by a developer in a joint-venture with hospital giant HCA, which owns the nearby Kendall Regional Medical Center, according to several sources familiar with the site.

The buyers then asked for an extension to continue researching the site, but Beckman Coulter opted to return to its short list of bidders. LuckyStart was on that list.

The acquisition fell apart just weeks before HCA’s Nov. 17, 2006, merger with an acquiring consortium led by Bain Capital, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity, along with HCA founder Dr. Thomas F. Frist Jr. and certain members of his family and HCA management.

Peter Jude, spokesman for Kendall Regional Medical Center, said he was unaware of the land deal or a plan to build new medical facilities in the general area.

Still, a traveler discovers a few towns that stand out. You feel their specialness as soon as you arrive—a sense of place that’s unique and defining. They make you want to linger over the drug-store postcard display, looking for just the right image to send to friends and family and to remind yourself of why you never wanted to leave.

What if a builder could evoke that reaction? Some say it could never happen, especially at fast-selling communities. You could pick them up and plop them in another market without changing a thing, the skeptics say.

Someone forgot to tell the builders featured here about that formula. In the following pages, BUILDER spotlights 10 of the best-selling communities from the nation’s top 75 housing markets. (For detailed information on all 150 communities, see the Best-Selling Communities listing. It’s the first time we’ve ventured past the 50 biggest markets, but experienced travelers know that exciting adventures can unfold when you go beyond the familiar.

So, this year, in addition to finding out what was selling in booming markets such as Phoenix, Atlanta, and Las Vegas, we headed to such unique places as Charleston, S.C.; Omaha, Neb.; and Albuquerque, N.M. One point to keep in mind is that the prices listed for each community profiled reflect the base prices offered when sales first started. Not surprisingly, many of those prices are now significantly higher.

Far from offering assembly-line construction, many of these builders have enticed buyers with innovative design that celebrates regional distinctions or introduces a new sense of style, at a wide array of price points.

It’s a traveler’s dream come true; these communities could inspire some postcards of their own. The only message needed is short and sweet: Wish you were here.