Talk of The Villages Florida - The 4th Town Square Location

Recent news articles in the Daily Sun about the purchase of 18,000 acres and the history of the town squares would seem hint to an upcoming announcement of the building of a new town square. My guess is that it’s going to be announced on May 8th at the Night With The Developer event.

I been working on a video with some drone footage for the last few weeks but I’m not sure when it will be finished so here’s the bulk of the script for a 10 minute video.

There’s been a lot of talk about where the next town square is going to be located but nothing official has been said by anyone except that it will be in Sumter County according to the agreement between Sumter County and the Developer on 7/10/18 when they entered into an agreement to build “Regionally Significant Roads”.

We have that one piece of data – Sumter County – which may leave Lake County feeling a little snubbed, well maybe.

There are some economic considerations that need to be addressed for a desirable location:

1. It will need to be surrounded by its principal customers – houses in The Villages. This is easily seen in both Sumter Landing and Spanish Springs. With the additions in progress south of Brownwood it too will soon be surrounded, the long-term planning from Brownwood’s location are now becoming obvious.
2. It needs to be far enough from the other squares as to not impact their business significantly, yes it will initially but that will quickly fade as the novelty wears off. Spanish Springs to Sumter Landing is about 3 miles and Sumter to Brownwood is about 5 miles. We could assume a similar distance.
3. Accessibility will be critical for the new town square. Both golf cart and auto traffic need easy accessibility as will delivery vehicles. In my opinion, Lake Sumter Landing suffers a little on the delivery vehicle accessibility side of things.
4. As this will represent a significant investment it will need to sustain continued development progress for about 10 years (based on the past timelines in today’s paper).

After looking at the maps of the area and doing a lot of driving and flying around the current and new properties I’ve come up with what seems the most logical location. In the 1st attach picture I’ve marked the area on the north side of CR470 between the Turnpike exit and what is show as Road C. This is my prediction.

This location has obvious good access for non-Villages traffic and delivery vehicle and will be surrounded by Villages homes in a few years. It eliminates a very undesirable location for homes near the Turnpike exit. The Square would be visible from the Turnpike – free advertising to bring in additional business. It’s far enough away from Brownwood that it won’t take business away. The Southern Oaks areas south of CR468 and West Lake Villages properties will be easily served by this location. I also think this will be the biggest town square yet.

This location has the advantage of being in both Sumter and Lake Counties. This fulfills the agreement with Sumter County and encourages Lake County/Leesburg into further considerations beyond the West Lake Villages Properties. This is extremely important as I’ll explain shortly.

A community like The Villages isn’t planned in a few weeks or months, it takes years and years of planning and groundwork to be successful. The Villages have been masters of this process. In the last 5 years planned developments in the county that have stagnated for years have been incorporated into the master plan of The Villages. The first of these was a development called Wildwood Springs, we now know this as Fenney and DeSoto. Then came Southern Oaks which was on the north side of the Turnpike but has spread even further. Next was Cresswind – this is now the area south of Brownwood all the way to the Turnpike. The announcement earlier this week of the additional 18,000 acres included The Landstone Communities and Renaissance Trails. Quite an accomplishment that took years of work and planning and substantial financial resources.

There is one additional piece to the puzzle that is hinted to in the first attachment, Road A travels from CR470 in the NW to CR48 in the SE, one has to question this road as to why. A little history, in November 2005 a development was proposed to the city of Leesburg call Secret Promise, as this was a time of explosive growth in Florida this plan, like many others, was quickly approved. Shortly thereafter the housing market started to collapse and most developments stagnated (not The Villages), Secret Promise was one of these that disappeared into a vapor. It’s not a hard stretch to see how this would fit into The Villages master plan. They would own all 4 corners of the CR470 exit! We’ll see if I right.

The second attachment shows these various planned developments back in 2010.

Back to the Town Square, the location spanning the Sumter-Lake county line keeps Lake county interested in The Villages and greases the skid to make approval of Secret Promise a part of The Villages. City and County government like growth that cost them little and brings in lots of tax revenue, just ask Sumter County and the City of Wildwood, both are reaping the benefits of the growth of The Villages.

Before the crying starts about were the water will come from: a) there is plenty of water in the aquafers below us and most of it still flows to the ocean every day and b) the dual water systems and recycling system, demographics (no teenagers taking long showers), and seasonal occupancy of a large number of homes makes the average potable water consumption in The Villages about a third of the average home in the state of Florida, and 3) the state reports a thousand people a day move to Florida, of these 20-30 move to the Villages, some are replacing Villagers that are leaving or dying off so we get a net gain of maybe 15 people a day, or less than 2% of the total influx into Florida. These combine to not even be a blip on the overall statewide water usage radar.

Of course, there will be lots of new amenities, golf courses, shopping, and other necessities that will go with all this growth, none of which will be announced until absolutely necessary to get planning approval.

Remember, we’re looking at 20-30 years of long-term growth and planning. This has been happening like this for the last 30 years here, it’s just more visible now that people have become more tech savvy in finding out information on the internet.

Some may say that this is just the next generation of the Developer’s family being greedy, I completely disagree with this opinion. This is good management and planning that is keeping a thriving business alive and growing. This is just a continuation of Mr. Schwartz’s dream and planning, remember that CDDs 9 & 10 were established just a few months after his death meaning that all the work, purchasing, and planning was already done and he was a part of it. It’s not a stretch to think he was involved in the early stages of what we are seeing now.

So, there you have it, we’ll see if I’m right. Only time will tell. If you have a scene of economics and development, you’ll probably see the logic in my thinking on this.

I have no inside sources of information, I’m only using publicly available documents, historical tends and data, and simple logic to make this prediction.

One last thought, the next square will hold things for 10-15 years of a 20-30 year plan, were will the 5th square be located, my guess along Road 4 between Road B & C.