Article by J. Kyle Foster | GrowthSpotter | To view the full article, click HERE.
A grocery store will anchor a new shopping center along recently expanded Dundee Road (SR 542) in Winter Haven, followed by 2-3 outparcels and up to 330 multifamily homes, according to planning documents.
The Shoppes at CC LLC, whose title manager is project developer WMG Development’s CEO, Curtis Frost, received Winter Haven approval in November for its Planned Unit Development (PUD) on 34.7 acres along Country Club Road between Dundee Road and Webb Road. The PUD allows for construction of up to 100,000 square feet of commercial and the multifamily units.
“All we know is it’s a grocery – we have not been given a specific name,” Winter Haven Planning Manager Sean Byers told GrowthSpotter. “We have not received a formal site plan for the commercial yet; something is coming soon on the forward portion.”
According to an application with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, WMG proposes a 46,000 square-foot grocery anchor with 11,200 square feet of retail connected to it. An aerial map submitted by Orlando-based England, Thims & Miller Inc. shows the working name as The Shoppes at Country Club. WMG can’t disclose the name of the grocer at this time, Darenda Marvin, WMG planning and entitlements director, told GrowthSpotter.
Byers said Winter Haven planners had a pre-application meeting with and saw a preliminary site plan from with another developer last year who was interested in building the multi-family units. No application was filed and “we haven’t heard from them since,” he said.
“We own the entire property. We do have approval for a multi-family component,” Marvin said. “We as an owner aren’t going through the permitting for that but we are going through the permitting for the commercial portion.”
On June 6, WMG, with offices in Winter Garden, asked the planning commission for approval to update the PUD to amend requirements related to permitted landscape trees and parking lot lighting. Specifically, WMG asked for the following:
Permit the use of live oak trees as canopy trees within the commercial parking area and yard trees within the multi-family area.
Increase the width and reduce the number of plantings for the Dundee Road landscape buffer.
Correct a scrivener’s error relating to the Webb Road landscape buffer.
Increase the maximum lighting intensity of the commercial parking lot from 2.5 foot-candles to 3.0 foot-candles.
The technical updates were approved and will go to the City Council for its OK. “Final approvals will be wrapped up in July,” Byers said.
Dundee Road, which has had capacity issues for decades, was expanded to four lanes from two from First Street to U.S. 27 in Dundee and is “essentially completed,” Byers said. According to the Florida Department of Transportation, the $43.8 million project was officially completed April 28. The area has 500-600 single-family homes in different communities, mostly built 5-10 years ago, he said.
The area has been transitioning from light industrial, Byers said. “I think now that the road has been widened, I would be shocked not to see” more homes and commercial.