The Villages Construction Update #134 – Following the Dream – 1/5/2024
 

Video #134 takes a look at all the construction happening in and around The Villages. In this video we’ll take a look at the construction happening at the new Target, Home Depot, CVS, and the rest happening at 466A and Powell Rd. We’ll look at the areas around Eastport and Middleton, Coleman Ridge, Edna’s, the Richmond area, Moultrie Creek and Shady Brook villages, and I take a look at the area far south of Middleton where the 5th town square is projected to be built. There is also a pUp date on the litter of puppies that Lilly and Sully had this summer that are all now 6 months old.
I hope you enjoy the video.
Don
https://youtu.be/CjusTtdSR68

Watched it this morning at 7 AM. Great video!

Thanks for watching.

Another excellent and informative video Don - thanks!

Great stuff, as always, Don. Thanks.

Great video Don. Always a great source of information and inspiration.

Wow!!

Totally amazing how The Villages continues to grow.

Double Wow!

At your video presentation! Thank you for doing this.

Thank you for the continued updates. Great videos and detailed explanations.

Great video, Don! The pups are cute too. I am amazed of the retail growth at Powell and 466A. Any talk of widening the 2 lane roads (Powell heading north, 466A heading west) to accommodate the increased traffic?

Great video Don! Thank you for letting us know about the Costco eventually coming by the Lowes on 466A - made my day!

:thumbup:

That's a Target that is going in next to Lowe's. With the HCA hospital, Mr. Carwash, Target, Ashley Furniture, and Outback Steakhouse that are scheduled there is basically no room left in the Trailwinds Plaza area left.

HaHa! From your lips to God’s ears since Don said nothing about Costco in this video. ;)

Thank you for sharing Don. Very eager to find out the next area to be developed after Moultrie Creek.

traffic light, Powell and Meggison at 44a, are an abomination

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Made you check though!!:icon_wink:

Sometimes we say things without saying things. :D

I may have missed it but did he mention a new cart path from Dabney to Eastport, over the pike on 470? :D :D

Nope, I didn't say anything thing about that yet.

I have one of these on order :)

It will either be Shady Brook (next to MC) or Well Point (south of MG) based on what I’m seeing for construction progress. While WP appears farther along than SB, the area around WP, specifically along McNeil Drive still has lots of work needed and they my want to keep the traffic off the road as long as possible for safety concerns.

There is also the progress on the downtown area of Middleton to be considered, as it progresses there is the need for a local customer base to support the businesses that will occupy the district. While the family community of Middleton is growing at a good rate, it is not enough at this point to achieve a sustainable customer base for the pending businesses. The age restricted communities grow at a higher rate with a higher level of disposable income making them a better target market in the near term.

Middleton and Eastport will be competing against each other for customers. Having an established customer base in Middleton will ease some of the initial downside that will come when businesses start to open in Eastport.

There are a lot of strategic factors that go into which area they start building in next. Looking at what I’ve mentioned here and several other factors, my prediction is that SB will be next (around March/April), then WP after with the opening of McNeil Drive. After that it will be a march to the center (Eastport) over the next 2 years. These are my best educated guess predictions, unfortunately I don’t have inside knowledge of what the developer’s timeline or strategy is, I can only go by observation and historical actions at this point.

No, I had already watched the video with hubby, lol. I’d never miss a mention of Costco as it’s something we want very badly even with the new one in Clermont. :)

Additional work on the 466a/Powell Rd interchange to accommodate the additional traffic is in the works. As far as widening 462 (Powell Rd), that section belongs to the City of Wildwood if I remember correctly, so that work would be up to them to fund and execute.

Powell and Meggison and 44a and Meggison never meet, not sure where you are talking about.

Corbin to McNeil
 

The connection of Corbin to McNeil up to Southern Oaks bridge is a big deal to those in the Fenney, DeSoto, McClure, Monarch Grove areas. This will cut a lot of time off travel to Southern Oaks golf and Sawgrass in a cart. It will also dramatically cut the time for those golfers coming from the Sawgrass area and south over to the executive courses in the Fenney area. I know the general rule is to not open in a construction area but the MMP was open during construction on Meggison and with the opening from Middleton to the Southern Oaks bridge.

I have not driven down from the Fenney area to the Moultrie Creek championship course in a cart yet but I don’t think my group will be playing that course until Corbin is open. Maybe they figure enough support for Moultrie Creek will come from existing golfers to the east of the turnpike. It was interesting to see the developer put up a fence at the end of Corbin to prevent carts from using the roads before they were open. I had seen a lot of carts using the roads before they were open. Not surprising given the time savings but not a risk I would want to take.

They opened the MMP's recently to Middleton under similar construction conditions about 2 months after landscaping was completed along the MMP's.

The MMP from Reagan Rd to McNeil is in work, base layer is complete, irrigation and landscaping are in work.

I suspect Don's March/April estimate is close.

I just flew over this area again today. Yes it would be nice if it was open but it's not and it's not going to be for probably a few more months. There is lots of heavy equipment working the three golf courses and the residential areas on the south/west side of McNeil, so it is still a very dangerous area there.

The path to Moultrie Creek was open for one reason and one reason only, SALES. They wanted to start moving the lots for the customer builds and drum up interest in the new area and they best way to do that is let people look around. They are not stupid, they know that a substantial share of new custom builds come from existing homeowners and these homeowners will spend more time shopping for a lot in their golf cart. Open the cart path = increased sales. That's how this business works.

Mark my words, it will only be a short time between the sales starting in Well Point and this cart, oops, multimodal path opens.

Thank you for sharing this video. Imagine what would’ve happened, or as in this case ‘wouldn’t have happened’, if the developer had chosen not to add on to TV? Think about the number of jobs, both direct and indirect, that he’s created. They ought to give him/them a medal.

Thanks Don, appreciate your perspective and all the work you do with your video updates. It is very interesting to see it progress and change each month.

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.