New city planned on St. Lucie and Indian River County's border

Date: December 23, 2005
Edition: Scripps Newspapers
Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News/The Tribune
By HUGO H. OTTOLENGHI
hugo.ottolenghi@scripps.com

A joint venture of Lennar Corp. and Centex has bought 7,400 acres in northwest St. Lucie County and southwest Indian River County as the developers move forward with plans to build the city of Cloud Grove.

Most of the land sits within the proposed Adams Ranch Stewardship, which would preserve Adams Ranch as rural land while turning citrus groves to the north into a metropolitan area with 12,000 homes and about 2 million square feet of commercial and other space.

Acting as Florida Conservancy & Development Group, the developers paid $62.55 million on Dec. 15 to a subsidiary of King Ranch for 17 parcels, according to public records. Three parcels totaling 1,441 acres are in Indian River.

The St. Lucie land stretches north from Florida's Turnpike at Minute Maid Road to the county line to where the land abuts the Indian River parcels.

"This is a significant step forward, said Ernie Cox, a partner at Gunster-Yoakley in Stuart and adviser to Family Lands Remembered, a Fort Pierce business whose principals are Warren Prescott, Enrique Tomeu and Carlos Vergara.

That firm is steering creation of the stewardship, under which the Alto "Bud" Adams Jr. family would receive incentives in exchange for protecting a large portion of their 16,466-acre ranch in western St. Lucie County from development. The family would sell "stewardship credits" to Family Lands, which would direct development of other parts of the property.

Only the land in St. Lucie County is part of the Rural Lands Stewardship program, but that represents the bulk of the purchase, said David Baselice, regional vice president for Lennar Homes.

"We're very excited about it," he said.

Baselice declined to give the reason that Florida Conservancy decided to purchase the land now, calling that "a contractual detail I prefer not to discuss."

Baselice said information about plans for Cloud Grove would be made available at public forums to be conducted Jan. 5 and Jan. 25 at the Schreiber Conference Center on the St. Lucie West campus of Indian River Community College.

At those sessions, developers may have some explaining to do to Indian River County officials. County zoning currently limits development on Indian River County land in that area to one home per 10 acres, Planning Director Stan Boling said.

Cox of Family Lands Remembered said that Florida Conservancy has not yet determined what it will do with the Indian River parcels.

"They (Lennar) told me they aren't proposing to develop that part of Indian River County, but would be looking at the site for mining," he said.

County Commissioner Gary Wheeler scoffed at that idea.

"Yeah, right," he said. "That's why I'd buy 1,400 acres — because I don't want to build."

In time, he said, Lennar surely would ask to move the Urban Service Area line so it could develop three or more homes to the acre. "This is the continuation of the beginning of becoming like South Florida."

Boling said he recently cautioned Lennar about its plans for the development on the St. Lucie side. He said he hoped Lennar would plan for large green spaces adjacent to Indian River County's rural land, and that Indian River County residents could use some of the recreational features of the new development.

Boling said Lennar has proposed building a road that would connect Cloud Grove to Oslo Road, but said Indian River County so far hasn't been interested in an access point that far west.

Lennar is no stranger to Indian River County, Boling added. The company is building homes at the 113-acre Echo Lake, the 72-acre Madeira Isles and the 136-acre Tripson Estates, all on 43rd Avenue southwest of Vero Beach.

Those projects are part of the South County Initiative, an informal agreement between county planners and developers designed to meld seven projects into one community of 2,736 housing units on 1,218 acres.

Staff writers Henry Stephens and Tyler Treadway contributed to this report.

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