Florida Spending $114M in Land Buys to Save Bears

The Department of Environmental Protection is recommending to Gov. Jeb Bush and his Cabinet a $3.3 million purchase of 800 acres in Lake County from private owners. The DEP also suggests acquiring conservation rights from other private owners for less than purchase costs on 3,000 additional acres near LaBelle, FL in Hendry County, 150 miles south of Downtown Orlando.

Based only on the total purchase price, the state will pay about $4,125 per acre or nine cents per sf for the 800-acre tract between the Ocala National Forest and two rural roads, 30 miles and 45 miles north of Downtown Orlando. If sold to private developers, the same land, depending on location, would go for at least three or four times the price the state will be paying, area planners tell GlobeSt.com.

David Struhs, secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection in Tallahassee, FL, couldn't be reached at GlobeSt.com's publication deadline to learn of other land acquisitions on the state's buying list. But DEP staffers confirm to GlobeSt.com the state already has spent $114 million or an average $3,081 per acre (less than one cent per sf) on 37,000 acres south of Ocala Forest that stretch to Rock Springs, FL, near Apopka, 17 miles north of Downtown Orlando.

That land purchase is part of a planned 74,000-sf acquisition the state envisions in the same general area. Florida environmentalists are pushing the governor and his departments to acquire large assemblages of land before private developers buy up most of the prime parcels for commercial development.

The race between private development and state conservation has been going on for the past 20 years but has only recently accelerated, as developers run out of land to build new ventures in Central Florida, area brokers and developers tell GlobeSt.com.

The single deadliest killer road for bears is State Road 46, leading from Lake County to Orange and Seminole Counties where 41 bears were fatally struck by motorists from 1976 to 1999, according to the Environmental Protection Department.

State Road 46 has also become the main traffic artery leading to many of the newest retail, residential, office and industrial developments in Orange and Seminole counties over the past five years.

Land in some segments along State Road 46 has tripled in value in only the last two years, brokers are noting as they search for desirable multifamily, retail and industrial development sites.