South Sarasota County is rising. The cities of North Port and Venice get ahead of the pack with is commercial and residential developments. Read this well-researched article from Gulfshore Media's CEO941 magazine's September 2016 issue.

1. 6 0
THE
SOUTH
RISES
9 4 1 C E O

2. 6 1S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 6
For years overshadowed by North Sarasota, sleepy little South
County is waking up with a roar. Bulldozers, construction
workers and brand-new gated communities cover a swath from
S.R. 681 in Nokomis south to Toledo Blade and I-75, just outside
the southern North Port city limits. More than 33,000 new
residential units are already planned for the decades ahead,
bringing an estimated 54,000 newcomers by 2030 and sparking
new businesses of every sort. “It’s a place where people want to
be,” says Venice Mayor John Holic. “It’s no longer a secret.”
Here’s a look at some of the major projects that will transform
the region in the coming years.
North Port
West Villages
A new city is rising south of Venice, one that will alter South
County just as Lakewood Ranch has transformed Manatee
County east of I-75 since it was announced 20 years ago. Called
the West Villages, the community has a Venice zip code but
became part of North Port more than a decade ago when North
Port annexed the former Taylor Ranch. The annexed community
is separated from North Port’s former northern border by about
nine rural miles. But that separation will disappear as the West
Villages develops.
Canadian-based Mattamy Homes, North America’s largest
privately owned homebuilder, saw the potential to build a city in
a growing retirement area and bought thousands of acres for the
West Villages several years ago. The company looked at legendary
planner John Nolen’s blueprint for downtown Venice, and New
Urbanist communities, such as Celebration, for inspiration.
“It’s 9,800 acres within a mile and a half from the beach,”
says Marty Black, the West Villages’ general manager (and
Venice’s former city manager), who helped Mattamy find the
property. “There aren’t many parcels left like that.”
Mattamy will build 23,000 residential units and 3 million
square feet of commercial development over the next three
decades. The West Villages is a community development district,
which can tax residents to build infrastructure. It has a governing
body and functions much like its own city. But it’s not just
the sheer number of homes that will change North Port. The
mammoth development also is aimed at a more affluent market.
“It will be its own brand,” says Ruth Buchanan, North
Port’s economic development director. “It’s got a different
demographic of mostly older, more affluent retirees than North
Port proper.” North Port has a median age of 40 and a large
population of blue-collar workers and middle-income retirees.
So far, 1,000 houses have been built, along with roads,
pipelines and other infrastructure. Buyers are coming
from Lakewood Ranch, Sarasota and other Florida coastal
communities as well as retiring Midwesterners and people from
the Northeast.
Construction begins this fall on the district’s first phase of
commercial development, a 68,000-square-foot New Urban
town square, anchored by a grocery store whose name Mattamy
has yet to reveal.
SOUTH
COUNTY IS
EXPLODING
WITH NEW
DEVELOPMENTS
AND RESIDENTS.
by Kim Hackett
EVERETTDENNISON
Going up: A home
in WCI’s Sarasota
National, one of 33,000
homes that will be built
in South County.

3. 6 2 9 4 1 C E O
“We are building a destination downtown with
streetside parking,” Black says. “It’ll be like four blocks
of downtown Venice, with restaurants on the water [a
manmade lake], a hotel and retail shops.”
It could also have a major baseball team. Local
officials are negotiating with the Atlanta Braves to
build a spring training stadium in the West Villages.
The proposed campus would have training facilities,
practice fields and a 7,500-seat stadium on a 100- to
150-acre site, with direct access to U.S. 41 and West
Villages Parkway.
Venice South
Grand Palm, Sarasota National
Other housing developments near the West Villages
are springing up, including Neal Communities’ 2,000-
home Grand Palm in east Venice. The $80-million
community was the first development approved under
the county’s 2050 plan, which seeks to create villages on
rural land with walkable, compact neighborhoods and
a variety of housing. Located on the southwest corner
of Center and River roads, Grand Palm has villas and
single-family homes, a recreation center, tennis courts,
ball fields, picnic pavilions, dog parks and 28 miles of
walking and bike trails. About one-third of the 1,003
acres will be undeveloped. Grand Palm, which broke
ground in 2012, is targeting OPALs (older people with
active lifestyles), who are 80 percent of Grand Palm
buyers. About 57 percent of all buyers are from within
Florida. Prices start in the low $200,000s for a single-
family home. Build-out is expected in 2026.
About six miles to the west of Grand Palm is WCI’s
upscale golf course community Sarasota National,
which eventually will include 1,584 single-family homes
and villas on 2,400 acres. Homes are priced in the
$200,000-$600,000 range. A big draw is the setting.
The Audubon Society helped plan the community and
preserve land, and the golf course is Audubon-certified.
Venice Island
New Hotels and Tra Ponti Villagio
While growth to the south and east of Venice are
getting much of the attention, Venice Island—so
named because it is separated from the rest of the
city by the Intracoastal Waterway—is also adding new
developments and hotels.
The last hotel built in the city limits was a Hampton
Inn in 1997. Now three sites on Venice Island are being
eyed for hotels: the former Circus Arena site, where two
developers have pitched proposals; the site of shuttered
Pineapple’s Restaurant on U.S. 41 Business near the
entrance to downtown; and the current site of the U.S.
Post Office downtown.
Grand Palm in east Venice combines villages on rural land with
walkable, compact neighborhoods and a variety of housing.

4. 6 3S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 6
One prominent developer has a familiar face. Mike
Miller was associated with major projects during the
boom years more than a decade ago, including three,
eight-story condos along the Intracoastal Waterway.
When the market collapsed, many of Miller’s buyers
simply walked away. It took years to recover, but today,
he says the market is on stronger footing and the
buyers are different. “We’re getting almost all-cash
buyers,” he says.
Miller’s current projects include Tra Ponti Villagio,
23 homes priced between $600,000 and $1 million
near the Intracoastal Waterway and the Venice Avenue
Bridge. He’s also building the first condo project on the
island in a decade, Che Vista, with 15 homes across the
Esplanade from Venice Beach, with three floors over a
garage. Those homes will sell for $670,000.
And Miller is one of two bidding to develop a hotel on
the former Circus Arena site.
Tra Ponti Villagio will have 23 homes near the Intracoastal Waterway and the Venice Avenue Bridge.
Palmer
Ranch
Venice
West
Villages
Grand
Palm North
PortSarasota
National
Venice
Island
2015-2025 Population Growth
Municipality
Major Road
Urban Service Area Boundary
Future Urban Service Area Boundary
Sarasota
2050 Plan
LOW GROWTH
HIGH GROWTH
Source: Sarasota/Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) 2040 Long Range Transportation Plan Forecast.
Prepared by Sarasota County Planning Services, January 2016, and modified by 941CEO.
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5. 6 4 9 4 1 C E O
City of Venice
Villages of Milano, Bellacina, the Hammocks
The city of Venice’s growth epicenter is in the Jacaranda Boulevard
and East Laurel Road area, which the post office calls North Venice.
Neal Communities has two new communities: Villages of Milano and
The Woods with about 1,000 planned homes.
The newly expanded Honore Extension, which provides an I-75
alternate route from Pinebrook and Laurel roads north to Sarasota,
also has spawned new communities. Taylor Morrison’s Bellacina
by Casey Key will bring 302 houses; and the Hammocks, the
southernmost Palmer Ranch development at the end of Bee Ridge
Road, is expanding south to Honore to include about 400
single-family homes and villas. All these new houses will create a
seamless community along the southernmost Honore Extension
between Palmer Ranch and Venice.
Venice’s Retail Hub
Jacaranda Junction
Not all the growth is residential. At Jacaranda
Junction, which broke ground in June, a Wawa
and Culver’s are the first businesses committed
to what is expected to be 300,000 square feet of
retail along Jacaranda Boulevard from Executive
Drive to East Venice Avenue.
Agent Loyd Robbins, who is marketing the
property for Jacaranda Junction LLC., a group
of local investors, says the development is also
pursuing upscale grocers such as Whole Foods,
Fresh Market and Trader Joe’s.
Robbins, a lifelong Venice resident who has worked in real estate
here for 45 years, says the area is ripe for more upscale retail,
including on Venice Island, where he sees the downtown district
becoming a “a mini St. Armands.”
“Venice is just a very strong market,” he says. “People are under-
standably attracted to the accessibility to the beaches and water. The
prices are reasonable compared to many other areas.”
SOUTH
COUNTY
STATS
NEARLY HALF OF SARASOTA
COUNTY’S POPULATION OF
395,000NOW LIVES IN
SOUTH COUNTY
SOUTH SARASOTA
COUNTY, WHICH MEASURES
368.92—square miles—
HAS A POPULATION OF
178,268NEARLY 60,000 MORE
RESIDENTS THAN IN 2000.
GROWTH ESTIMATES
WILL REACH
191,445IN FIVE YEARS AND
232,270BY 2030
THE AREA IS OLDER,
WHITER AND HAS A HIGHER
PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN
THAN THE NATION OVERALL.
THE MEDIAN AGE IN
SOUTH COUNTY IS
58.3THE POPULATION IS
91.4
PERCENT WHITE AND
52.2
PERCENT ARE WOMEN
DOWNTOWN
VENICE
ISLAND WILL
BECOME A “MINI
ST. ARMANDS.”
A home in Neal Communities’ Villages of Milano.

6. 6 5S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 6
The biggest challenge, Robbins says, will be traffic.
River Road, for example, has long been viewed as
dangerously inadequate, and the thousands of new
homes coming to the nearby West Villages will only
exacerbate the problem. “River Road is a disaster that
should have been addressed years ago,” Robbins says.
North Port
Heron Creek
With a half-million square feet of commercial projects
in various stages of development in North Port, Sarasota
County’s largest municipality is also becoming a
business magnet.
The New Urban development of Heron Creek
will give North Port a real downtown, with shops,
restaurants and offices, something sorely lacking ever
since North Port was created by General Development
Corp in the late 1950s.
The Heron Creek Towne Center is a planned
40-acre mixed-use development, with above-the-store
residences, similar to downtown Venice, and sidewalks
lined with restaurants and shops. The new community
will connect to North Port’s municipal campus, which
functions like a town square. The campus is home to
City Hall, the police and fire departments, the post
office and the George Mullen Community Center and
its vast park, where sports teams compete and the
community holds many of its festivals. “It’s going to
give us a Main Street,” says economic development
director Buchanan.
North Port
Cocoplum Plaza
North Port’s retail scene dramatically changed when
Benderson Development opened its 375,000-square-
foot Cocoplum Plaza in 2012. Before then, residents
had to travel to neighboring Venice and Port Charlotte
to do most of their national retail shopping and dining.
Now, the city has a Hobby Lobby, Ross, TJ Maxx, Panera
and about three dozen other stores and restaurants.
Cocoplum is the largest strip plaza between Fort Myers
and Sarasota, according to Benderson. “It’s a growth
success story,” says Mark Chait, Benderson’s leasing
director. “All the stores there are doing very well.”
Benderson has invested in several South County retail
centers, mostly redeveloping existing centers, including
Jacaranda Plaza in Venice, home to LA Fitness, Bonefish
Grill, First Watch and a dozen other businesses.
North Port
Suncoast Technical College
One of the challenges southern Sarasota County
faces is providing a trained workforce to meet the needs
of rapid growth. Suncoast Technical College, which
began in 1967 as Sarasota County Vocational Training
Center, plans to open a campus in North Port next year,
training students for a variety of careers. The extension
will be built in phases, with the first stage to include
a business conference center, a public library and the
Suncoast Technical College’s Culinary Program. π
A rendering of Suncoast Technical College opening next year
in North Port.
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