All of the new homes popping up along Interstate 75 north of Palmetto, along Moccasin Wallow Road in Parrish, and in Lakewood Ranch offer proof that Manatee County’s explosion of growth has not yet run its course.
Even so, 2022 may be remembered as the time when growth in the Bradenton area went from a rolling boil to a rapid simmer.
The pace of home sales in 2022 was more reminiscent of the year before the pandemic arrived: strong but not super heated.
Even though there were plenty of buyers, the affordable housing part of the homes equation remained unsolved.
Workforce housing
How does a community provide affordable housing for those in the workforce who provide essential services? What about the nurses, teachers, law enforcement officers, and the thousands working in Manatee County’s service industry?
Sharon Hillstrom, president and CEO of the Bradenton Area Economic Development Corporation, said in October that the EDC is well aware of the problem.
During recent years, the EDC has been working with local businesses on a concept for a potential solution.
“We have met with 12 companies who have expressed an interest in building workforce housing for their employees. It needs to be a private-public partnership. We are getting the data from the surveys. There is more to come,” she said.
It’s unknown whether that solution might be a single workforce housing community or maybe several.
Whatever the solution, it seems that an answer might be found by out-of-the-box thinking, like that being considered by the EDC and others.
Countywide permits
For the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, Manatee County issued 6,079 new residential permits compared to 5,897 in fiscal 2020-21, and 3,696 in fiscal 2019-20.
Approval of building permits and subdivision plats approved does not necessarily mean all of the building will be completed immediately. It’s not unusual for a project to remain in limbo for many years due to economic conditions and other factors.
In 2021, the latest year that figures are available, the Manatee County Property Appraiser’s Office added about 4,500 new homes with a valuation of about $2 billion.
Previously, a typical year saw the addition of about 3,000 homes with a value of about $1.3 billion, said Mark Johns, chief deputy for the Property Appraiser’s Office.
Lakewood Ranch
Lakewood Ranch, Manatee County’s largest master planned community, is on pace to exceed 1,700 sales this year, which would put it ahead of 2019 sales, the last pre-pandemic year.
But new home sales in 2022 will come nowhere close to the record 2,562 sold in 2021.
“We recognize the COVID bump was really an anomalous period. Although there is great disparity in opinions concerning the resiliency of our economy going into 2023, we know that interest rates will need to stabilize and build cycles will need to compress before we see a strong uptick in sales,” Laura Cole, senior vice president of LWR Communities, said in an email.
There was also a slackening in sales of existing single-family homes in the Bradenton area in 2022, compared to the worst of the pandemic.
In October, existing homes were taking longer to sell, sellers were not always getting their asking price, and there were more homes on the market. Yet prices remained high at $549,444, a 29.3% increase from the same month a year earlier.
Among factors cited by Cole in the continuing development at Lakewood Ranch:
▪ Many people moved to Lakewood Ranch in the past few years but couldn’t find a home. So they rented and are now ready to buy.
▪ Hurricane Ian has drawn buyers and tourists from storm-affected areas to Manatee-Sarasota.
▪ With the population growth in the region over the past few years, jobs have followed and “need based” home purchases are still prevalent.
▪ Migration to the Sun Belt, while tempering, is still strong.
▪ Lakewood Ranch housing options are expanding in 2023 with the opening of seven new neighborhoods priced from the $300,000s to $1 million-plus, and the opening a number of new apartment and build-for-rent communities.
Late in the year, Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, the developer of Lakewood Ranch, submitted paperwork to Manatee County government for Del Webb’s third 55-plus community in the Bradenton area. SMR was seeking approval to begin site preparation on 699 acres for Del Webb-Catalina at 18940 State Road 64 E.
It’s in an area where Lakewood Ranch Communities has sought approvals to build up to 7,000 homes east of Bourneside Road along State Road 64. The property is in an area previously reserved for agriculture.
The Bradenton area
Workers were busy in 2022 at Lake Flores, a planned 1,200-acre mixed-use planned development in the west Bradenton area, finishing up the creation of 45 acres of wetlands on the west side of the property.
The property — historically the Manatee Fruit Company where flowers were grown for more than a half century — extends from the vicinity of IMG Academy west to 86th Street West and borders El Conquistador Parkway on the south and Cortez Road on the north.
The first phase of Lake Flores is planned for 1,016 homes, a 49-acre town center, and the planned centerpiece, the 19-acre Lake Flores.
When the project starts going vertical, it will be under new ownership: the Neil Bluhm family of Chicago, under the corporate name Cortez75W Investors LLC.
Also underway in Bradenton:
▪ NDC Construction Company broke ground in September on a 12-story apartment building at 920 Manatee Ave. W., designed to bring workforce housing to downtown Bradenton.
The Nine20 Manatee apartments are scheduled for completion in about 18 months, and are planned for 137 units, with rents ranging from about $1,300 for a one-bedroom unit to $1,600 for a two-bedroom unit.
All of the 86 homes planned for Hunters Point are being outfitted with solar panels plus a large battery system to provide power 24 hours a day, and share any excess with the electric grid.
“The goal was always to do something that hasn’t done before: build a home that has a positive carbon footprint, that would generate more power than the owner consumes,” company founder Marshall Gobuty said.
▪ Developers were moving forward with plans for Promenade at Riverwalk to turn vacant land near the Riverwalk into downtown Bradenton’s newest attraction with nearly 300 apartments in two seven-story buildings along with a new facility for ArtCenter Manatee building and retail space.
Since 2019, HTG has opened the 90-unit Addison apartments, 702 Sixth Ave. E. in Bradenton, and the 96-unit Oaks at Lakeside complex, 5260 34th Street Cir. E. Riverview6, an 80-unit affordable housing complex near downtown, is also in the works and set to open in early 2024.
Parrish-North River
John Neal, president of Neal Land & Neighborhoods, developer of North River Ranch where more than 6,000 homes are planned, says that 2023 will see a return to a more normal pace of development.
“I am very bullish about Florida. The Florida economy was managed correctly during the downturn. We still aren’t building enough houses for the people living here and moving here,” Neal said.
Included would be 1,466 single-family detached and semi-detached units, 328 single-family attached units and 256 multi-family units.
▪ Newport Isles, a 1,555-acre development, is planned for 3,382 homes south of the Hillsborough County line, north of Buckeye Road, east of U.S. 41 and west of Interstate 75 at 14000 Grass Farm Road, Palmetto.
Plans for Newport Isles were first presented to Manatee County government as far back as 2005. In February, the Manatee County Commission approved a request to establish the Newport Isles Community Development District to help pay for roads, water and sewer.
During the year, Manatee County Building Services also processed paperwork for several other projects in the Parrish-North River area:
▪ Cone Ranch general development plan, with 2,048 lots and a variety of housing types at Keen Road and State Road 62. Plans for the development of Cone Ranch date back to at least 2006.
▪ Firethorn planned development, U.S. 301 North, Parrish, is planned for 1,540 dwelling units on 549 acres. The property extends north from Buckeye Road to the Hillsborough County line.
▪ Prosperity Lakes Phases II-IV, Blue Diamond Trail, off Fort Hamer Road, is planned for 703 single-family residential units.
▪ Buckhead Trails, 10905 131st St. E., is planned for 532 lots.
▪ Rye Ranch Phase II, is where 450 single-family homes are planned on 158 acres. In June 2021, the Manatee County Commission approved plans for Rye Ranch that would bring 3,500 new homes and up to 300,000 square feet of commercial space to property that runs parallel to the east of Rye Road and south of County Road 675.
▪ Rutland Property on North Rye Road, is where 340 single-family homes are planned on 152 acres.
Workers attach roof trusses to a home under construction at Lakewood Ranch on Dec. 5, 2022. Lakewood Ranch remained one of Manatee County’s hottest building areas in 2022. James A. Jones Jr. jajones1@bradenton.com
Part of the Lake Flores project, looking south towards Sarasota Bay with 75th Street West on the left. Plans for phase one of Bradenton’s Lake Flores project have been submitted to Manatee County by new owners, though construction is not expected for a year. Tiffany Tompkins ttompkins@bradenton.com
The 12-story Nine20 Manatee apartment building will feature protruding balconies on the 11th and 12th floors, as well as a shade awning that covers the sidewalk on the ground floor. NDC rendering Bradenton
Development in Parrish is growing quickly, with North River Ranch under continued construction and two new hospitals planned on Moccasin Wallow Road. Tiffany Tompkins ttompkins@bradenton.com
