Lakewood Ranch is expanding to the south. This will be its town center

It was a major milestone for Lakewood Ranch, and a fun one as well, Rex Jensen said.

With a champagne toast, speeches, and an obligatory tossing of shovels of dirt, Jensen, president and CEO of developer Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, led the groundbreaking for Lakewood Ranch’s second town center.

Waterside Place, which is scheduled to be completed in 2020, is planned for 100,000-square-feet of retail, restaurant and office space, as well as hundreds of apartments, all within walking distance of the largest of Waterside’s seven lakes.

Waterside Place will be at the heart of the new Waterside community, south of University Parkway, and east of Interstate 75 where more than 5,000 homes are planned.

Just as Lakewood Ranch Main Street became the heart of the Manatee County portion of Lakewood Ranch, Waterside Place is expected to become the heart of the Sarasota County portion.

But its mix of dining and entertainment attractions are expected to make it a destination for residents and visitors well beyond Waterside.

The Players Centre for the Performing Arts, which just this week sold its Sarasota facility to an anonymous buyer for $9.5 million, will be moving to Waterside Place, where it will eventually present 300 performances a year.

Planned by The Players is a $30 million facility at Waterside Place.

“We know that we will be fund-raising for the next 20 years,” Jeffery Kin, artistic director, said.

Groundbreaking for The Players’ performance center is planned for 2019.

“It’s an auspicious occasion for everyone,” Kin said. “Go big or go home. We’re doing what is right for our organization.”

Fred Hazel, chief financial officer of Davis Development of Atlanta, also attended Thursday’s groundbreaking.

Davis Development is planning to build more than 860 apartments at Waterside Place over the next four to five years, which will become home to 1,700 residents, Hazel said.

Developers of Waterside Place envision that it will become a safe, walkable scene of seasonal festivals, monthly activities, and a farmers market accessible by trails and water taxis.

Construction of the commercial portion of Waterside Place will be all built at one time by Willis Smith Construction.

SMR has not revealed which businesses will locate at Waterside Place, but officials say they have letters of intent from nail and hair salons, a yoga studio, gym, travel agency, a women’s boutique, and both in-line and free-standing restaurants.

“Waterside Place presented a unique opportunity to create a mixed-use project that has a significant amount of waterfront restaurants, shops and office space,” Kirk Boylston, president of LWR Commercial, said.

“We have spent almost two years in planning and design to make this a special place for our residents and expect it to be a regional destination. There will be a number of open gathering spaces, parks, and a marina located directly on the waterfront, which will make Waterside Place a setting unlike any other retail area in the region. It isn’t just a place to go shop or dine, but a place to hang out, relax and enjoy the surroundings,” Boylston said.

Waterside opened a little more than a year ago, and SMR recently announced that the first 100 homes have been sold.

There are currently four home builders in two villages in Waterside: Homes by Towne, Arthur Rutenberg, and Lee Wethington in LakeHouse Cove, and Pulte in Shoreview.

Waterside is planned for 1,425 acres of developed space and 4,065 acres of open space.

When Waterside is finished, it will feature 12 compact, walkable neighborhoods connected to each other and to Waterside Place.

SMR expanded a number of roadways to connect Waterside with the rest of Manatee and Sarasota counties, including the extension of Lorraine Road as a four-lane thoroughfare to Fruitville Road, which was complete in September of 2017, updates to Deer Drive, and the extension of Lakewood Ranch Boulevard to Fruitville Road, which began in July of this year.

For a closer look at Waterside will look like, visit http://lwrwaterside.com/#video.

For more information, visit lwrwaterside.com.

This story was originally published October 4, 2018 at 2:10 PM.