She’ll oversee 25,000 acres as the first head of the Lakewood Ranch Stewardship District
In mid-July, Anne L. Ross became the first executive director of the Lakewood Ranch Stewardship District, under which more than 25,000 acres of the master planned community are being developed.
It was a big change for Ross, and for the district.
Ross, 49, a civil engineer, had served as executive director of Lakewood Ranch Town Hall since 2015, when she left her previous position as assistant town manager of Longboat Key.
“This was a challenge I couldn’t pass by,” Ross said of her new role in starting to prepare the massive district for the changeover from developer control to resident control, a shift that is still several years in the future.
“The growth of the Stewardship District was moving faster than anyone anticipated. I was intrigued by the challenge of going from developer control to resident control,” Ross said.
Helping boost the speed of development was the COVID-19 pandemic, which stepped up the demand for housing at Lakewood Ranch and elsewhere.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill in 2006 creating the super district that straddles Manatee and Sarasota counties.
Creation of a single district streamlined the development process through economy of scale. Rather than creating a community development district for each new village at Lakewood Ranch, one super-sized district would serve all.
Through the stewardship district, developer Schroeder-Manatee Ranch was able to borrow money, issue tax-free bonds and award contracts.
Waterside, SMR’s first village in Sarasota County, is among the new villages being developed through the Stewardship District.
In 2006, an SMR official compared the super district to the six existing CDDs at the time, which had been developed on 4,350 acres -- only that the new district was exponentially larger.
Ten years after Jeb Bush’s stroke of a pen created the Stewardship District, Rex Jensen, CEO of SMR, signed off on a $79.5 million bond issue to pay for roads and utilities for the Waterside development.
Among other things, the bond issue funded the extension of Lorraine Road and Lakewood Ranch Boulevard south to Fruitville Road in Sarasota County. SMR also extended Deer Road from near The Out-of-Door Academy to Waterside Place, Waterside’s Town Center which is now nearing completion.
Waterside is planned to have 5,144 residential units and 400,000 square-feet of commercial development.
Ross is working out of SMR office space at 14400 Covenant Way, Lakewood Ranch.
In 2019, SMR reopened the former Summerfield information center, 6310 Lakewood Ranch Blvd., as “town hall north” for a couple of days a week.
Coming under oversight by the Stewardship District are development of the splash pad at Waterside, which is different than anything else at Lakewood Ranch, and maintenance of Patton, Bob Gardner, Robert Hill and Silver Falls parks, Ross said.
Also intriguing to Ross is the plan to have a water taxi connecting the neighborhoods of Waterside Place.
Waterside is being developed on 2,000 acres south of University Parkway around seven lakes, the largest of which is 6,200-feet long.
“The water taxi will be a great amenity for the residents,” Ross said.
As for Ross’s old job as executive director of Lakewood Ranch Town Hall, the Interdistrict Authority has retained the same recruitment firm that brought former executive director Eva Rey — Ross’s predecessor — to Lakewood Ranch,
Steve Zielinksi, chief financial officer for town hall, is serving as interim executive director at town hall until the recruitment process is completed, perhaps by the end of this year.
One of the next steps for the IDA is to draw up a profile for recruitment firm of the qualities they are looking for in a replacement.
This story was originally published October 5, 2021 at 11:42 AM.
