Future Lakewood Ranch Florida Development Updates (Exact 2023 Blueprint!)

This article is a direct transcription of our YouTube video, the video is linked at the bottom.

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the channel. I am your host, Adam Hancock. Thanks for joining us once again. Today's video, I'm going to walk through future Lakewood Ranch, Florida development updates. There was a recent conversation that happened that talked about expansion, commercial update, new home villages, education options, everything in between. This is the absolute latest, so I'm going to unpack that over the next few minutes. I hope you find a lot of value in that.

Okay, brief catch up just so everyone reading this can get on the same page. Lakewood Ranch, Florida, the number one multi-generational master plan community in the entire United States. 30-plus separate neighborhoods called villages that you have access to. Over 20, I believe you can still build in, unbelievable new amount of communities coming soon. Huge swath of acreage here. Over half of it's set aside for green space, parks, trails, et cetera. There's multiple downtowns. There's Downtown Waterside, Downtown Lakewood Ranch, tons of other places to commune. The streets are very smart how they run through the area. Several golf courses, very kid friendly, high rated schools.

This entire lot sits about, at its closest, 25 to 30 minutes from the main part of downtown Sarasota, Florida, Lido Beach, Siesta Key, six miles from all of that. And then the entire thing beyond that sits about just 60 miles one way South of Downtown Tampa, Florida as well. Very interesting to the state as a whole. Now, in this video, I'm not going to break down that further. I want to talk about updates specifically, now that you have a little bit of context of what I'm talking about here. We're going to walk through four major areas on what is going on that's really relevant to 2023 and beyond. So, let's hop in.

Expansion

Okay, number one, let's talk expansion. For the first time in over 100 years, Lakewood Ranch, Florida is looking to expand its physical boundaries. I know you said to yourself, "What are they doing that's not expanding? They're always expanding." Well, technically, this huge piece of land that sits Northeast of Downtown Sarasota, kind of shaped like a vertical rectangle, showing a map here. But from University to State Road 64, all of what's currently existed was kind of already pre-approved, not kind of, but it was pre-approved. This was a plan. The reason that it's so smart, one family owns all this land. The oldest house built was 1995. The way the roads run, the way that communities don't look that disconnected, even though there's some that are nine, 10 miles apart from each other is because of that reason in my mind. But they haven't really gone outside those boundaries.

They're looking to do that in two different ways in the next year, two to three years. One of the ways, the bigger one probably, is called the Southeast Lakewood Ranch area. This sits basically familiar with the area at all, we'll show on a map again here, it sits next to Windward, adjacent to Windward in the waterside district, kind of shaped like this, proved up to 5,000 total homes. It is 4,000 acres and it's supposed to be a mix of different builders, different homes, green space lakes, all the traditional Lakewood Ranch stuff. They're supposed to keep the cohesive nature of it. I'm going to talk about potentially what it means at the end here after I announce both of these. But they think they're going to get it approved. They're past the first layer, but they're not fully in the clear. And the builders and all that are going to have a chance to kind of bid their opportunity of why they should be involved in this area.

That's going to determine how many of the 5,000 homes are actually built because that's the approved up to that range. But depending on what the builder's concept is for the area and all that kind of stuff, then that'll determine if they max that out. And for reference, even more, if you're even more intimate with this area, that Toll Brothers community that's been kind of vague, that sits not The Isles, the one that sits off of that Fruitville corridor past Founders Club, that is in that area. So just reference on location. So that's one, that'll be interesting. 2025 would be your potential purchase range for Southeast Lakewood Ranch. Secondly, they're going directly above that Northeast and this gets you way up next to Star Farms in essence. Not all that different, but a little bit more information here. So versus that being just a straight expansion, this is a joint venture with the current landowner. So you know a little bit more here.

This one is zoned up to 4,500 total homes. They already know that they're going to try to do that over three different villages, which is Lakewood Ranch's word for neighborhoods basically. We don't know what those are yet and who they're going to be yet. But those two combined of 4,000 acres lower and 2,500 acres up, that's going to add 6,500 acres to Lakewood Ranch. They think that's going to bring an additional 21,000 residents to the area based on what they know about the development and the amount of homes and the average move and all that kind of stuff. So Lakewood Ranch Southeast, Lakewood Ranch Northeast is your two areas. Now there's a lot that you could probably not, can't do all in this video here, but there's a lot that you can talk about there. It scares a lot of people. I live in Lakewood Ranch.

Traffic is interesting, scares a lot of people about the bandwidth for the area, there are enough schools. We're going to talk about here for that as well but what they say, grain of salt, but what they say is that you consider the amount of people for the land mass, like the huge land mass to what this area is to the state. Consider the amount of actual per capita that is there. And then what do you need in those kind of areas? Your downtowns, your schools, the commercial, how to get to work, the roads, all that kind of stuff. They believe that they've considered all of that. They also said that this will not look discombobulated because you have Summerfield and Greenbrook that were built from '95 to 2000. And then you have communities that won't even start until 2025, 2024. You could say, what are these things going to look like by the time they're all said and done. They said they're still going to do the white gates.

They're still going to have a lot of conservation set aside, a lot of green space. They believe they'll look cohesive. And then Lakewood Ranch is very prideful that they've considered unlike just the normal county, they've considered the roads. And if you drive on them right now, you may disagree with that. But what they're saying is that they're building, if you're driven born side Lorraine or Uihlein, they're trying to do four-lane roads before the homes are even there. They're trying to really think about this because they know all this stuff so far in advance. They think that they're going to be in good shape with what you need to basically build a city. So time will be told, also they don't own all that Sarasota County land by Fruitville and all of that. So if these two get combined with each other and get cohesive, then hopefully it won't be a problem. Because the big problem right now is going from University Lorraine down to Fruitville.

If you go to downtown or any of that kind of stuff, that's the big bottleneck is trying to get through Fruitville to get past Honore more or less to get south. So it'll be really interesting to see what they do with that many residents there, but should be interesting overall. And those are your two major expansion items for our first point.

Schools

And number two on the list, let's talk schools. So you have all these residents moving into the area, 21,000 plus. You have all the people that are building homes right now in current neighborhoods that still haven't moved in yet. I have two kids under six, so I think about this all the time as well. What is this place going to look like? What can you do? So right now you have an area that covers two counties. So they do have to deal with that multiple jurisdiction. Below university, it's Sarasota County, Waterside in that area. Basically 90% of it north of university is Manatee County. Right now the spread's pretty solid for the most part. Lakewood Ranch High, you have Nolan Middle, Gullett Elementary, you have Willis, you have private schools, you have Montessori. The high school is a little bit of an issue for Sarasota County because if you're in Waterside, you're zone for Booker High, which is not anywhere near this place, but they can't access Manatee County unless it's school choice.

What's Coming?

So let's focus on what they have announced is going to come. And like I mentioned originally, they feel like this plan will cover the amount of kids that will average with this amount of residents in totality of the area, in the future area for what's going to happen. So Manatee County first, most of the new expansion exists Northeast. It's going above State Road 70 towards Uihlein, Star Farms, Sapphire Point, all of that area. So right now, first they have a high school that they've owned that land that is zoned for, if you know where the Premier Sports campus is, kind of by the Greenbrook area, Nancy's barbecue, that kind of area. Premier Sports Campus. There's a high school zone there. So that would give you another option that's not private beyond Lakewood Ranch High. This is a complete TVD, you have no idea when this is coming.

But I think that'll be really, really key because most of the original Lakewood Ranch was built this way. It was built by Summerfield, Greenbrook, the YMCA, Lakewood Ranch High, Central Parks over there, Harmonies over there. It was all built on that Lakewood Ranch Boulevard north to south. But then they went over here and they built on that Lorraine up to Uihlein where Polo Run is and Sapphire Point and Azario, Star Farms, all of that area. It gets you a little bit stretched. So this high school would be a really nice middle ground for a lot of the happenings over there with kids stuff. A lot of the soccer happens over there with Greenbrook Park and Premier Campus. But it's a really, in my mind, all that to say, it would be a nice area. So it'd be really interesting to see when they get that going.

Secondly, in the actual Star Farms area itself, there's a K-8 zone there. And that is actually supposed to begin construction 2023 to 2024. So you have a K-8 option there that will solve a problem too for expansion of residents. They have 15 homes in Azario, 15 homes in Star Farms. You have Solera right there, you have Sweetwater, a lot of kid friendly neighborhood's right in that area that seems far in a map. But all that new construction's heading in that direction. So high school K-8, then come down to Waterside, which is really in vogue at the moment, right? One school, which is TBD on what grade levels and TBD on timeline, but it is zoned for this particular area. It's in the corporate park above the new part of waterside. So think west and we'll show on a map here, but think west of the main waterside now west of King Fisher Lake, west of Lakehouse Cove Shoreview, above where Alcove and Avanti are going to sit. So that area, if you're familiar.

There's a corporate park right there. There's going to be a school within that corporate park. This is very, very key because like I said, one of the biggest deterrents for people with kids right now in Waterside is at Sarasota County. Middle school and elementary school, you have Tatum Ridge, you have Macintosh, not bad rating wise, but Booker one, it's one of the lower rated take ratings with a grain of salt. You got to make your own decisions there. But Booker High is by the airport. It's nowhere near this area, it's just Sarasota County. So this will solve a lot of problems there. And then the entrance for Lakehouse Cove, if you know where that's at. There's a K through five opening there, not until 2028, but there's going to be a K-5 that open there so you don't have to go all the way to Tatum Ridge.

So four new schools that are supposed to solve a lot of the influx of resident thing. And then beyond that, they believe that with the additions of that, the additions of schools that are going to come south of it towards the Fruitville area and just the preparatory private schools like ODAs upper school, the Lakewood Ranch Academy, new ones, upper school with the expansion of the private and charter school element. There'll be enough for everyone depending on what you're looking for. So that is what I wanted to say in this video about schools, and hopefully that does encompass everyone's needs for moving to this new community.

New Homes

Okay, number three, let's talk new homes. I'm not going to get crazy comprehensive here, as this might be better in a separate video. We've done many, I'll try to link here, but I want to talk about some affordable options for new construction coming. I want to talk about other new construction coming and some remaining scarcity opportunities before closed out at other neighborhoods. So first, when it comes to affordable new construction options. I wouldn't say a lot of people would be jumping at Lakewood Ranch as a recommendation for affordable building. I mean there's villas for $600,000, there's town homes for $500,000, $600,000, $700,000. So this isn't more affordable than your average Joe, historically. There's two interesting options that are coming that should balance this a little bit because I know that's been a major complaint for a lot of folks. One of those is Ryan Homes.

Ryan Homes is a more affordable builder. On average, they have not built in large capacities in Lakewood Ranch in the past. They're building one called Avalon Woods. Both of the communities I talk about here are going to sit in the middle right by all this stuff. Basically just northeast or just adjacent to Lorraine Lakes above State Road 70 but near the high school and near all the parks in the thick of it. So a good area for Lakewood. Ryan Homes is building one called Avalon Woods. Over 200 single family homes, over 100 town homes. You should have an opportunity to buy mid-February 2023 and I think the cheapest overall town homes in all of Lakewood Ranch when it comes to new construction. So if you're looking for that kind of thing, whether you're a first time home buyer, empty nester, investor, anything in between, Ryan Homes, Avalon Woods should be interesting.

Lennar, which is not a novice to Lakewood. Lennar built Lorraine Lakes, Lakewood National, Polar Run, all over the place. They're launching a new one that's a little bit more of a boutique called Aurora. Aurora's going to be 73 single family and 174 town homes. So again, they're going for more affordability here. Lennar does have a lot of capacity to view what their town homes typically look like, and Lorraine Lakes is probably your best spot. They're actively selling town homes right now. I think the lowest one I was able to help a customer buy was about $305,000. And they're selling them right now for about 340,000. But that'd be a great place to check out. And that is called Aurora Fall 2023. Okay, beyond my affordable options, let's talk everything else and we're going to move down to Waterside and we're going to start working our way left to right, opposite camera here, across the lakes.

So I'm going to give you some updated timing versus stuff I've said in the past and where I'm going to run through them very quickly. So first, the most Western, west of all the current Waterside stuff, you have two communities that share a lake. One of those is called Alcove. Alcove is Neal Signature. It is going to be your first community plan to release and Neal Signature is a little bit more custom than average Neal. Average Neal would be Windward, would be Indigo. Neal Signature is their semi custom brand. 47 total homes planned, a lot of lake there. And then they share this big lake with a community called Avanti. Avanti is Pulte Homes. It's going to be much more homes. These two combined communities will be about 250, 260 total homes, I think between the two. And this Pulte brand, it looks like it's going to be a lot more similar to Sapphire Point than it would be to Shoreview.

It's small less burden from a square footage standpoint. And it's villas, I think town homes and single families. So alcove, they think they're going to start selling in January of 2023. So that's coming around the corner. And Avanti by Pulte thinks it's going to be about April, 2023, depending what happens with their other communities. You want to get plugged in any of this, by the way, there's interest lists and all this kind of stuff. But if you want to get plugged in, please reach out to the group. I'll put a point person on these things and we can work them for you. And both of our efforts can maybe push you through the noise there as these things get in vogue, which I think a lot of them will. Okay, we're going to work our way down. So that's one lake, that's the most Western, great location, it's closer to town, it's closer to the beaches, everything.

We're going to go right here. We're still not to King Fisher Lake where LakeHouse Cove and Shoreview are, and we stop at Emerald Landing. Emerald Landing is David Weekley Homes. If you're not familiar, there's a community called Payne Park in downtown Sarasota. David Weekley has a central living like urban style, very cool aesthetic looking homes. And I think that it's going to be a combination of that, that they basically drop in this district and then they add their regular single families to it. I did a video, I'll put up here somewhere or up here or wherever, on my guess of what this will look like. But Emerald Landing by David Weekley, it's going to be single families, villas and town homes, and they look at April, 2023 as well. I think about a 100, 200 I think it's going to be in that one if I remember it correctly.

All right. We're going to work a little bit further. Now, we get to Kingfisher, we get to the massive lake. Kingfisher is where Waterside Place the downtown sits on. And we hit the very bottom of Kingfisher. It's called Nautique. Nautique is M/I Homes. That's going to be town homes and single families. And it's going to be I think 60%, 70% town homes then the rest are single families. These are going to be cool narrow. They're supposed to have courtyard style, rear garages and a lot of stuff there. I think that this one would be interesting. And M/I Homes build Sweetwater in Lakewood Ranch as an example for style. And this one's called Natique. All right. Now, let's talk custom real quick. So we have a few different options when it comes to higher end price point. John Cannon Homes is doing a very boutique one called Kingfisher Estates.

13 total homes very close to the downtown, but 13 total homes that are all on water on obviously Kingfisher Lake. They're also doing another one that's another small concept called Monarch Acres. That's in Lakewood Ranch. So John Cannon's doing Monarch Acre and Kingfisher Estates and John Cannon's building in Star Farms as well. So keep an eye up for that to the Northeast. Then we have Wild Blue. So Wild Blue, we have a video that should have came out a couple days before this, I believe. But Wild Blue is going to be a brand new custom, very exciting community. It's going to really solve a big void. That one is going actually on the opposite side of Lorraine. So that's going under the Libby Starbucks area on the opposite side of Lorraine, but adjacent to the main Waterside. And this is going to be all custom, it's very unique concept, Stock Development, stock custom development that is doing the last phase of the Lake Club. They're based out of Naples.

They are the master plan developer of this area. And then there's all these lot sizes. So basically, I think the smallest lot in this whole thing is 68 feet wide, but there's all these lot sizes that go up to a hundred, like 68, 70 whatever, 80 whatever up to a hundred. And then there's different custom builders that are going to hop on portions of those widths. So you have Arthur Rutenberg, you have Anchor, which hasn't been a lot in Lakewood Ranch. That builds a lot towards the beaches. Anchor, you have John Cannon, you have Lee Wetherington, a lot of the old players. And they're going to all combine to do a community. Stock Development's going to have the majority of the lots as the developer, but you're going to have a myriad of different options at a price from about 1.8 to about 4 million probably, depending on what you choose.

But very unique to anything here and a very big spread that solves a price point of 2 million to 4 million that has been lacking in a lot of people's minds from a quality and a community standpoint from the folks I've been talking to. So, all right. That is what's coming new here. And then there's one spotty, one I'll just throw out there. It's called Palm Grove by Neal Communities, that's above State Road 64. Palm Grove by Neal, if you want to look it up. That's all I'll say about that in this video. All right. Now to digress, communities that are already existing, what's left in them, I'm just going to flip them off real quick to you, if you're interested in grabbing something before they're gone. Savanna, which is way northeast Lakewood Ranch, Meritage Homes, I believe. 35 single family homes remaining, 500,000-ish. Indigo, which is Neal very close to the high school. 49 single family homes and attached villas left, remaining Harmony, which is the town homes right by State Road 70.

There's only 22 remaining for their sellout. They're mostly sitting in the mid 400 thousands, the last time I checked. Del Web Lakewood, which a lot of people like, Pulte's parent company owned brand, 57 single family homes mixed with Quad Villages and the Lake Club, the last building phase of Genoa by only stock development, they only have 29 left. So when some of these go, there won't be a quick way to replace them. So I did want to mention that to you, and that's a very wordy way of my speed round of new construction. And my fourth section, I just want to talk about commercial very briefly here and then we'll let you go.

Commercial Development

Okay, our fourth section, if you made it with us, I want to talk about some fun stuff. Just commercial development, store, shops, that kind of thing. I tried to be brief on this one. I'm not sure I have a brief in me, the more I talk about it. But again, I want to get all this information out to you guys and hopefully you can work through these videos with the timestamps. Okay, so one of the big things with Lakewood, so you have all these people in here, but I work in downtown Sarasota. My office is here. I live in The Isles. So I have that kind of... and I'm a going out person, so I like all the stuff. I love downtown Sarasota. But the more clunky it gets to get down here, you're hoping you're yearning for things to get out to Lakewood and they're doing a good job with it and there's more coming. So I just wanted to tell you kind of the releasing of those.

So right now you have Waterside. Waterside has a Mexican place coming called Agave. You have brewery, you have a Trattoria Steakhouse, lovely area. Downtown Lakewood Ranch, I still like myself. I like Ed's Sports Bar and you have an Irish bar, Mexican place there, you have an Italian place. But what is cool, especially with someone that lives by the Lorraine University area, is the Center Point District. So right now by my house, I have Libby's, which I really like. It's like, I like Boca in Sarasota and Libby's, I would call them my Boca to the Northeast. It's just a cool little spot to hang out. So you have the Libby's, they put a Starbucks right there at Chase Banks. You got kind of everything you need, if you're coming from Lorraine and university towards the interstate, basically towards UTC, towards downtown Lakewood, there's a huge area called Center Point.

So if you've driven that area, you see they put a McDonald's in there and you see all this kind of development. Some office space, but there's going to be a mix of restaurants and stuff in there as well. So if you're not familiar, Owens Fish Camp, which is downtown, which I'm really excited about this one. They're putting a much larger space there and I think you can see the bones of it already. It looks like it's already sitting there. So Owens Fish Camp, much more parking. That's one of the highest and ranked seafood in all of Sarasota. There is a natural food place that they're putting in there that's already been announced. McDonald's is already fully running. They're putting International Diamond Center there, which they have multiple spots. They're putting Med Spa there. They're also putting a Club Pilates there. So this can be a big spot.

Yoga is there. It's called YogaSix. I'm not familiar. Fifth Third Bank's already announced there. There's signs on the road. 7/11 looks like it's about done completion, which they definitely need another gas station on university there. TD Bank, and then they're putting in dental services. So everything that an average person would need. Newly announced tenants, there's a place called Crisp and Green, I'm not familiar that has been announced. They're putting a place called Lake Park Diner, a place called The Thrivery, The Toasted Yolk Cafe. So I'm guessing breakfast there. Salon Lofts, which is a chain, I think they have one up by State Road 70, that Starbucks, Sports Clips putting another location there, there is a nail lounge. Woodies Wash Shack is coming there and Woof Gang Bakery is also coming there. So I just wanted to announce that. That's in addition to all the Waterside stuff.

So this should be a pretty hopping area eventually. So if you buy anywhere like in Wild Blue, the last phase of the Lake Club or resale or The Isles, which a lot of that area's been sparse, which is good for living. I like the conservation area, but you should get a lot more things that start to satiate a need of not needing to come all the way down to Fruitville or downtown Sarasota if you don't want to. So that's what I would say about commercial and that is a wrap for this one.

Conclusion

All right folks, that is a wrap for this article. Really hope you enjoyed it. If you did and you're not already subscribe, please consider doing so. Secondly, you're looking to buy real estate, sell real estate, relocate regardless of your timeline, please consider reaching out to my team if you're resonating with these videos at all. Lastly, before you leave, check out the description box below. Free digital guides, free analytical tools. My website there is going to be an ever growing library or free resources there. So we would love for you to check that out. Most importantly, thank you for watching. We'll see you on the next one.