Good feelings

The next 12 months will be busy for Marty Black.

The longtime developer leads an ambitious project in south Sarasota County, to turn Thomas Ranch, a 9,650-acre property into a successful live, work and play development. Master-planned communities like that are sprinkled statewide. The list includes FishHawk Ranch in Hillsborough County, Lakewood Ranch in east Manatee County and the forthcoming Babcock Ranch in Charlotte and Lee counties.

Black, general manager of the project owned by Canada-based Mattamy Homes, has already been at it since midway through 2014. In May that year Mattamy and some minority partners bought the property from Thomas Enterprises for $86.25 million. The deal for the land, in the city of North Port, was the largest single land residential purchase in acres in the country in 2014. It was also the largest U.S. purchase ever for Mattamy Homes.