Posts tagged Lakewood Ranch

LAKEWOOD RANCH Lakewood Ranch Corporate Park wants to add 2 million square feet of office space to its 1,300-acre complex off University Parkway, which many already refer to as the new commercial hub for the region.

Developer Schroeder-Manatee Ranch was limited in an earlier plan to building 2.3 million square feet of office space at the park through 2014. But it has already built or has construction approvals for 2.2 million square feet, so it is petitioning the county to expand that figure to 4.3 million square feet.

“We’re up against it; that’s why we’re here,” said Todd Pokrywa, SMR’s vice president of planning. The developer won an 8-0 vote Thursday night from the Sarasota County Planning Commission. The change of plans next goes to county commissioners for a final vote on Aug. 26.

The going might be tougher there since county officials are pushing SMR to make its huge development more multimodal. That is an industry term for beefing up plans for bus and shuttle service, bike paths and pedestrian access with the aim of making the park less reliant on the automobile.

“We’re committed to working on a multimodal plan,” Pokry- wa said, noting that negotiations with the county are ongoing.

Sarasota County Commissioner Joe Barbetta said there was “no question” that pushing the developer for commitments on an overall transit plan would be the biggest issue at the August hearing.

The county is considering the addition of a bus route to the corporate park and is interested in plans for a local shuttle that would feed into the public transit system.

SMR’s new plan also calls for another 534,000 square feet of office space to be built between 2015 and 2019, bringing the total to 4.9 million square feet.

To get a grasp on how big 4.9 million square feet is: It is 112 acres, or 1.1 million square feet more than is contained in the Sears Tower, North America’s tallest building.

The numbers are big enough that the county now considers SMR’s corporate park to be the region’s commercial center, said Sarasota County Administrator Jim Ley.

The park has been so successful that other areas in northern Sarasota County once envisioned as being home to commercial office space have not gotten off the ground.

“They’re the sucking sound sucking things into that area, and that’s not bad,” Ley said.

Unlike other parts of the country, most of the income of Sarasota County residents comes from transfer payments, such as investments, Social Security checks and other forms of income that are not wages.

In most places, workers’ paychecks are the biggest source of income.

It is that need to diversify the local economy and attract higher-paying jobs that led to the county’s approval of the project in 1995 and its continued support for it, said County Commissioner Jon Thaxton.

While SMR is not immune to the downturn in real estate, the plans reflect what the developer believes will happen over the next six years, Pokrywa said.

The new plan suggests long-term hope for a commercial market that has grown soft with the other sectors of real estate. However, the plan also shows an uncertainty about Florida’s ability to attract manufacturers.

SMR is cutting the amount of industrial space at the corporate park in half. Earlier plans had called for 2.8 million square feet for manufacturers, but that number is cut to 1.4 million square feet in the new plan.

“The office market is weak right now,” said Carl Wise, a principal with Preferred Commercial in Sarasota. “The housing downturn hit everyone in the butt.”

But Wise added that executives at SMR are “good, thoughtful, long-term thinkers.”

In the current market, an industrial building will sell for $80 to $150 per square foot, while an office building will sell for $250 to $350 per square foot, Wise said. So, it is lucrative for a developer to switch to commercial from industrial, if it can, he said.

“We’re not seeing anything conducive to industrial in Florida,” Wise said. “They tax these guys to death and make it really hard for them. That’s why so many manufacturers are leaving.”