Billion-Dollar Development Passes First Hurdle

LEESBURG, FL-Surgeon/developer Clayton Pruitt’s planned $1 billion, 3,334-acre, mixed-use venture is formally in the approval pipeline after elected city officials voted to send the proposal to the Florida Department of Community Affairs for further study.

If approved at several other bureaucratic levels in Tallahassee, FL, the city’s comprehensive land-use plan would be revised and the pasture-land project would break ground in 2003 near the hamlet of Okahumpka, FL (Pop. 332), 50 miles northwest of Downtown Orlando.

The 20-year enterprise would be the largest ever attempted in this 114-year-old city of 15,624 permanent residents. It’s also one of the largest planned projects of its kind in the state. Leesburg prepared itself in June of this year by annexing the rural 3,334 acres, putting the land within the city’s boundaries.

Preliminary development plans call for the construction of 1.3 million sf of retail/office; four million sf of industrial; 10,102 single-family, duplex and triplex shelter units; and 5,320 multifamily units.