Babcock Ranch reaches key sales milestone

Babcock Ranch, the all-solar community being built in rural Southwest Florida, hit a milestone last week when it reached 5,000 houses sold.

The house was bought by Mark William and Fay Jean Petersen, the second one they’ve bought in the development. The Lennar-built house is in the Willowgreen community.

The sale came just a little more than a year after Babcock Ranch reached the 4,000-homes-sold mark.

While impressive, Babcock has reached only a quarter of the 20,000 houses the developer of the community, Kitson & Partners, expects to build.

Babcock Ranch is an 17,608-acre self-sustaining community that straddles Charlotte and Lee counties about 45 minutes from downtown Fort Myers. It is made up of energy-efficient homes with an 870-acre solar panel farm powering it and its own water reclamation facility.

About 50% of the community’s acreage is preserved.

Syd Kitson, the chairman and CEO of Kitson & Partners, and the mastermind behind Babcock Ranch, told the Business Observer last year that he envisions it becoming a full-fledged city that both preserves nature and serves residents.

“People ask me, ‘Gee, if you're an environmentalist, how can you be a developer?’” he said in an interview.

“I think it’s the perfect combination. Because we have to build homes. We have to build places for people to live, particularly here in Florida. And you know, as a developer you have impacts. It's our responsibility to mitigate those impacts and do it in a sustainable way.”

To that end, in addition to the sustainability features, there is a school and a downtown as well as a 23-acre sports complex and The PKWY, a series of six interconnecting parks with pavilions, playgrounds, hillside slides, multipurpose fields, a fishing lagoon and an observation tower overlooking preserves, lakes and wetlands.

There is also a 120,000-square-foot shopping center, The Shoppes at Yellow Pine, which opened last month with a tenant roster that includes Marshalls, Home Goods, Ace Hardware, Five Below, Ulta Beauty and seven restaurants. Tampa General Hospital will also operate an urgent care center and a medical facility in the community.