With the Osceola Parkway extension now moving toward state approval, the Tavistock Development Company is making adjustments to the plan for its southern expansion in Lake Nona, on the former Poitras Airport property, and the general contractor has filed plans for its first Laureate Park-branded community in the expansion area.
The company designated the 64-acre N-3 community south of Luminary Boulevard as Laureate Park South and designed a traditional community of 235 homes with eight different lot sizes and housing types. The plan would increase the number of housing units from the original 182 by transferring residential rights from the N-1 and N-2 communities, which were not designed, so that the total number of housing units remains unchanged.
The development plan calls for two types of townhouses: a standard 24-foot (6-meter) wide model in 5-unit buildings and a “large house” style design, consisting of three attached 30-foot (9-meter) wide units, surrounded by single-family homes of varying sizes. Dozens of bungalows with rear entrances would face a central thoroughfare, which carries the landscaping theme of Laureate Park.
The community is located east of Pulte Homes’ 500-unit Isle of Lake Nona development, with a future 30-acre school to the west. There is no direct connection between the Pulte development and N-3, but there will be several access points to a new road that will connect Luminary Boulevard to Boggy Creek Road to the south, crossing the toll road. The N-4 community, approved as a gated community with 124 larger lots, is located to the north—across Luminary Boulevard.
The conceptual plan for N-3 was presented along with an amendment to the approved Planned Development for the Poitras East property to incorporate the 708-acre Poitras West property that Tavistock purchased in October for $49.35 million. The amendment would assign PD zoning to the area and designate specific residential, commercial, and industrial districts.
It identifies three new residential developments and seeks approval for 1,625 housing units. Of these, 700 are located in the two Village Center areas, south of Luminary, and 242 units will be age-restricted. All homes in the master plan will be located within 400 meters of a local park.
“The goal of this plan is to provide green corridors in residential neighborhoods to connect residents to parks and recreational opportunities, in addition to the multi-use trail networks in Lake Nona and Poitras East,” according to the project description.
Under the master plan, the entire project would be allocated 400,000 square feet of commercial and retail space in the central areas, along with 2.24 million square feet of high-density airport support facilities on nearly 125 acres in the western section.
The new master plan would set aside 718 acres for parks, conservation, lakes, and roads. This includes 210 acres of “right-of-way” for the extension of Osceola Parkway. Tavistock and Deseret Ranch/Suburban Land Reserve control 80% of the right-of-way for the future expressway. They agreed to sell it to the Central Florida Expressway Authority for less than half its appraised value as part of an incentive to choose the preferred alignment. The CFX voted in December to select the route approved by the developer, but the project still needs to obtain approval from the Florida Community Trust before moving on to the design and construction phases.