Growth in Parrish keeps booming. This large farm could soon be turned into housing
Another 1,833 homes and 300,000-square feet of nonresidential space could be coming to Parrish, one of the Manatee County’s fastest developing areas.
The owners of Jones Potato Farm, 12002 Buckeye Road, have filed paperwork with Manatee County government seeking a rezone of 635-acres from general agriculture to planned development mixed use.
The property extends from Buckeye Road in the south to the Hillsborough County line in the north. The Fort Hamer Road extension would run north and south through the property.
With an estimated 25,000 homes already permitted or awaiting approvals for construction from Manatee County, Parrish and the North River area have become a development hot spot, second only to Lakewood Ranch.
Paperwork submitted to Manatee County government by ZNS Engineering of Bradenton on behalf of the owners shows that about 70 acres of the property is wetlands. Twenty acres would be available for a school, and 15 acres would be set aside for parks.
A combination of single-family detached, single-family attached, single-family semi-detached, and multifamily housing is envisioned for the property.
Property owner Alan Jones did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the project.
Jones and his father moved to Manatee County from St. Johns County in 1986 and began farming on leased property. In the early 1990s, they began buying property and now have farming operations in Manatee and Hendry counties.
In 2017, Jones Potato received the Florida Agriculture Commissioner’s Agricultural-Environmental Leadership Award. The award recognizes agricultural producers who practice environmentally innovative techniques. Jones Potato Farm was nominated for the award by the Nature Conservancy.
Pandemic fuels demand for potatoes
While many sectors of the state’s agriculture community have been badly hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic, Jones Potato Farm in March was seeing a surge in demand for spuds grown on its 1,800 acres.
“It’s incredibly busy. We are in the middle of the harvest and the demand is way more than we expected,” Leslie Jones said last March. “We are working seven days a week trying to get the product to Sam’s Club, Walmart, Publix, Costco, Kroger and others.”
The harvest started off normally on Feb. 3, but as March arrived and concern about COVID-19 grew, the phones started ringing from brokers Jones Potato Farm doesn’t usually hear from, seeking replenishment for supermarket shelves, she said.
While ordering fell off from restaurants, many of which were forced to close, or shift to curbside service, demand from supermarkets more than compensated, she said.
Other large developments mark Parrish’s future
The Jones Potato Farm planned development is considered a large project, but it is far from the largest in the Parrish-North River area.
That distinction goes to North River Ranch and its 2,600 acres of former pasture and farmland land along Moccasin Wallow Road, just west of Parrish. North River Ranch is planned for about 5,000 homes.
Developer John Neal, president of Neal Land & Neighborhoods, previously said that as many as 28,000 people may eventually call North River Ranch home.
Also coming to Moccasin Wallow Road is Del Webb’s second 55-plus active adult community in Manatee County.
The new 950-home community, called Del Webb BayView, is being built on about 500 acres near the intersection of Moccasin Wallow Road and Carter Road, north of Palmetto and west of Parrish.
This story was originally published January 22, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Growth in Parrish keeps booming. This large farm could soon be turned into housing."
