The Bradenton Herald reported that the next step in Lakewood Ranch's rapid transformation from farmland to a burgeoning city is a downtown.
After 11 years of building Lakewood Ranch on the strength of suburban single-family homes, Schroeder-Manatee Ranch Inc. now plans something different - a high-density expansion with thousands of multifamily units, millions of square feet of commercial and office space, and hundreds of hotel rooms.
The company recently submitted plans for the project, called Lakewood Centre, to local and regional planners for review.
"It will be designed to serve as a true town center for the Lakewood Ranch community as well as other surrounding communities," said Todd Pokrywa, SMR's vice president of planning.
That center will sit on 695 acres bordered by State Road 70, Lakewood Ranch Boulevard, a future eastward extension of Malachite Drive and Pope Road. On it, SMR plans 3,675 homes, 1.77 million square feet of commercial space, 1.56 million square feet of office space and 300 hotel rooms, all wrapped around an uncompleted hockey arena that is not part of the company's fifth development of regional impact (DRI).
Of those homes, 3,239 are slated to be multifamily units and just 436 as single-family homes. Pokrywa said an unknown number of those multifamily units could be designated as work-force housing, now defined by Manatee County as homes priced between $160,000 and $192,000.
That's a departure for Lakewood Ranch, which has acquired an upscale image based on its development history of more-expensive single-family homes, gated neighborhoods and a corporate park with high-paying white-collar jobs.
"It is different from the other DRIs, but it fits in with where we are in community development," said Sondra Guffey, spokeswoman for LWR Communities LLC, Lakewood Ranch's developer and a SMR subsidiary. "The community has reached a maturation level where there's a need for this type of (multifamily) housing."
SMR hasn't yet determined what kind of housing the multifamily units will be, but it could be a mix of townhomes, apartments and/or condominiums, some possibly located over retail space, Guffey said.
It's also possible that some of the residential buildings will be taller than what's currently in Lakewood Ranch, she said. The tallest buildings now are three-story condominium buildings over ground-level parking.
The potential for work-force housing in the area excited Suzie Dobbs, the county's affordable/work-force housing coordinator. She said she has "strongly encouraged" SMR in the past to incorporate affordable and work-force housing as it develops more of its vast land holdings.
"We would love to get a start out there," Dobbs said, adding she has not yet spoken with SMR about Lakewood Centre.
There now is no officially designated work-force or affordable housing, defined as homes priced below $160,000, in the fast-growing area south of the Manatee River and east of Interstate 75, she said. The only affordable housing east of the interstate is Tuscany Lakes, a 348-unit complex on Mendoza Road in Ellenton.
SMR plans to develop Lakewood Centre in three phases through 2019:
• First phase: 900 multifamily units, 300 hotel rooms, 458,000 square feet of office and 460,000 square feet of retail through the year 2011.
• Second phase: 1,800 multifamily units, 200 single-family homes, 542,000 square feet of retail, and 458,000 square feet of office between 2011 and 2014.
• Third phase: 539 multifamily units, 236 single-family homes, 772,000 square feet of retail, and 647,000 square feet of office between 2014 and 2019.
The company is seeking Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council approval only for the first phase, said John Meyer, the council's DRI coordinator. Approval of the latter phases will depend on further traffic, environmental and other studies, he said.
Meyer estimated it could take 12 to 18 months for the project's first phase to get approval.
Lakewood Centre is the fifth portion of SMR's 31,000 acres in Manatee and Sarasota counties to be slated for development.
The company previously won approval to develop three portions, totaling nearly 9,400 acres, into more than 9,800 homes, 5.28 million square feet of office space, 1.63 million square feet of commercial/retail space and 4.7 million square feet of industrial space. Those approvals also included 215 hotel rooms and 150 hospital beds.
Plans for another 4,446 homes, 200,000 square feet of retail space and 105,000 square feet of office space on 1,500 acres immediately east and north of Lakewood Centre are being reviewed by county, regional and state planners.
