SARASOTA, FLORIDA, September 12, 2017 – Much could still be expected from the market activity in Summerfield, the first community to be established in Lakewood Ranch in 1995. Since the start of 2017, some 60 pre-owned homes were sold here and about half a dozen residences were sales-listed in August alone.
Further impetus to Lakewood Ranch homes for sale in this community could be gained from its neighboring 265-acre business park whose development continues to gain traction. Located just across Summerfield on State Road 70, the CORE (Collaboration Opportunities for Research and Exploration) business park recently drew a second locator—Optical Outcomes LLC.
The St. Petersburg-based Optical Outcomes is putting up HealthPark, a two-story, 42,000-square-foot medical office building that it expects to start before year end for completion in late 2018. Besides medical offices, the building will also house a 10,000-square-foot surgery center, the first multispecialty operating facility within Lakewood Ranch.
CORE has likewise recently drawn health care equipment supplier Mercedes Medical. It is set to break ground on a $10 million building in the CORE business park.
This new building is expected to be completed in the 2018 third quarter. It will consolidate Mercedes Medical’s three facilities in Manatee County which currently have a total workforce of 65 employees. The company’s new CORE building will be built for as many as 120 employees, indicating the possibility of expansion for the 12-year-old local company.
Mercedes Medical caters to about 10,000 customers nationwide. Its divisions include histology supplies, pharmaceuticals, clinical supplies, and toxicology supplies.
The CORE initiatives of HealthPark and Mercedes Medical follow the 150,000-square-foot retail center now being developed in the business park by Orlando-based Tavistock Development Co. Besides the organic grocer Earth Fare, this Tavistock development will also house a franchise of LA Fitness plus a collection of health-related restaurants and merchants.
For its CORE venture, Tavistock acquired 42 acres within the business park, paying $8 million for this site. This developer also plans to put up a 294-unit apartment complex in its Lakewood Ranch property.
In all, the three CORE developments announced recently will create close to 250,000 square feet of commercial/office space at the business park by end-2018. The entire park hub is being designed to house as much as 4.5 million square feet of business space for development over two decades.
The ultimate plan for CORE is to gather enough life sciences uses and businesses which could draw a research hospital or university to the business park. Amenities like those of Tavistock are part of the development strategy to draw more locators at the business park. The park’s whole concept is that of a very walkable development with open space wherein restaurants and other retail establishments could mesh in.
These amenities, as well as potential job opportunities at the business park, should help further fire up market interest in CORE’s neighboring residential communities where recent sales listings are looking quite attractive.
In the condo neighborhood of Summerfield Hollow just across the business park, for instance, two units priced in the high $100s are amongst new listings of Lakewood Ranch homes for sale. These endearing townhouses offer options on two or three bedrooms within a floor area of 1,461 square feet plus the opportunity of living in one of the dynamic areas of the Lakewood Ranch master development.
SARASOTA, FLORIDA, October 7, 2019 – Property values of communities in the Sarasota-Manatee region now face lesser threat from neighborhood eyesores brought about by abandoned, foreclosed homes. Known in the real estate trade as zombie foreclosures, these properties have shrunk significantly in the region. According to an August report of ATTOM Data Solutions, abandoned […] more>>