$35M build-to-rent project with 125 units planned near UTC mall

Marquesa Capital Partners, a multifamily investor and developer with several projects in the works locally, has bought 11.6 acres just off University Parkway, a few miles west of Interstate 75 and The Mall at University Town Center.

Peter Olesiewicz, the firm’s principal, says in an email that the plan is to build a 125-unit build-to-rent community on the property. The property is on the Sarasota County side of University, near the DeSoto Lakes neighborhood and the Tabernacle Church.

“We acquired the parcel yesterday and are actively working through our engineering so we can take it through site plan approval,” Olesiewicz writes in an email Tuesday.

Property records had not been updated Tuesday afternoon and Marquesa did not disclose what it paid for the property or a specific address. But Olesiewicz says the cost of the project will be about $35 million.

The planned community will include one-bedroom paired villas as well as two- and three-bedroom detached villas. Each unit will have a private backyard and “top of the market rental features.” The community will have a pool and dog park.

Marquesa hopes to break ground during the second quarter next year and complete the project in 2028.

This will be the company’s fourth build-to-rent project in Florida — its second in the Sarasota/Manatee market — and seventh in the southeast.

The company’s other local projects include the Villas at Gulf Coast, a similar 140-unit community on Alico Road in Fort Myers that was completed last year.

It is also “finishing up” an 81-unit community on Jacaranda Circle in Venice named the Villas at Venice. Marquesa expects to have its first certificate of occupancy for the development in coming weeks.

And, the company hopes to break ground later this year on a 178-unit project on County Road 52 in Pasco County.

Marquesa is a partnership between Olesiewicz and Sarasota-based Scot Lloyd.

“Scot and I specifically target horizontal multifamily, where we feel that we can provide residents all of the amenities and community of apartment living, with the privacy and low density of single-family living,” Olesiewicz says in the email.