[Goldwingnut]

Originally Posted by Altavia

I suspect giving Middleton residents (Villages employees) cart access to Sawgrass and the rest of the Villages was also a motivation.

Undeniably there will be some traffic going between Middleton and Sawgrass Grove (and beyond) by families, but it’s very unlikely to be sufficient to justify the opening.

Considering that few of the 300(?) Middleton residents have golf carts, a pretty big expense for a family, and fewer yet have 4-seaters or 6-packs that would be necessary to haul the kids along. Ignoring the 4/6 issue, going anywhere beyond SG requires considerable time to & from Middleton marking the car the better option. Currently to get a gallon of milk from Middleton by GC would take about 20 minutes to get to the nearest GC accessible store (Publix @ Lake Deaton Plaza) or nearly 45 to the physically nearest store (Publix @ Magnolia Plaza). Even Brownwood is 40 minutes by GC. That’s a lot of time involved that can be cut to a third of that by taking the car.

I stand by my original statement, the opening of the cart paths to Middleton is purely driven by sales. Hardly a nice day goes by when I’m in the MC/SB area that there aren’t 2 or 3 senior couples out looking at homes in the area in golf carts. This is a very smart move on the developer’s part, they understand their market and how their customers see their world. It’s a business, pure and simple, and they are very good at what they do.