Good Vibrations

Today a renaissance is taking place here. Small shops and restaurants flank palm-lined Venice Avenue, and nearby Venice Little Theatre and Venice Art Center are the hubs of cultural life.

Within walking distance of the compact downtown shopping district are historic 1920s-era Mediterranean Revival estates surrounded by more modest single-family homes. A few blocks west leads directly to the Gulf of Mexico and Venice Beach, a favorite spot to comb for sharks’ teeth. (The Venice Sharks Tooth Festival draws thousands of fair-goers each April.) Here are a mix of 1970s low-rise condominiums and new luxury projects.

Surrounding golf course communities—and there are many—offer a wide range of suburban ranch homes and villas with vista views.  Long-established Jacaranda Country Club, Plantation Golf & Country Club, Waterford Golf Club, Mission Valley Golf & Country Club, Calusa Lakes, Capri Isles and Pelican Pointe Golf & Country Club have been joined by posh newcomer Venetian Golf & River Club.

Two areas are about to boom. Some 3,000 acres in North Venice are slated for residential, commercial and industrial development in the next decade. Among them is Waterford Companies’ recently announced $320-million The Renaissance, with more than 800 residences, an 1,800-seat movie theater and 295,000 square feet of commercial-retail space. And in south Venice, construction is under way on the enormous Gran Paradiso on Thomas Ranch, a community of 1,999 homes ranging in price from the $300,000s to over $2 million.  

NORTH PORT

One of Florida’s fastest-growing cities and, at 120 square miles, one of the largest in land area, North Port is beckoning families and value-conscious retirees to its affordable subdivisions and its central location close to I-75 along the Sarasota-Charlotte county line. Young homeowners, many of whom commute to work in Sarasota and Fort Myers, can still find small, older carport homes for under $200,000.

Neighborhood parks, a multitude of youth programs and beautiful new schools are turning North Port into a real community. Even the cultural amenities are developing: A popular concert subscription series is held each winter in North Port High School’s performing arts center, and the North Port orchestra, chorale and concert band give public concerts there as well. 

Three major golf course communities, Bobcat Trail, Heron Creek and Sabal Trace, are attracting active retirees from the Midwest and other Northern climes. They offer two-bedroom villas and patio homes from the $300,000s, and single-family homes from $400,000 to over $1 million—a price unheard of here a few years ago. More than 80,000 visitors, including many eastern Europeans, flock each year to the healing 87-degree waters of  Warm Mineral Springs in northernmost North Port. An ambitious $50-million renovation of the resort is planned, with new condominiums, estate homes, an artists’ village and redevelopment of the springs themselves on the agenda.

In 2005, the city of North Port issued 3,008 single-family building permits, more than all the rest of Sarasota County combined. With the real estate slowdown, that number has plummeted, an developers have concentrated instead on commercial projects to support a ll that growth. Besides the 1.5 million square feet of office and retail development now under construction or being planned, new communities such as the 225-residence Talon Bay and the mammoth 2,500-home Woodlands at North Port will be coming on line.

And planning for future growth doesn’t stop. Last year, a West Palm Beach developer announced plans for the Isles of Athena on 5,800 acres in northeast North Port. Preliminary plans call for 15,000 homes and a town center with restaurants, offices and shops—virtually a brand-new city within the city. Planning and permitting are at least two years away, developers say.

BRADENTON 

A spot on the scenic Manatee River in northwest Bradenton is believed to be where Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto and his crew of 600 first made landfall in North America, in 1539. Today, a quarter of a million visitors from around the world annually visit the De Soto National Memorial to witness the place where De Soto started his infamous 4,000-mile journey across the southeast United States.

They also visit Bradenton—Manatee County’s seat of government and its largest city, with a population of just over 53,000—to relax on its beautiful beaches, play on its 21 golf courses and cheer on the Pittsburgh Pirates during spring training at old-timey McKechnie Field.

Bradenton boasts a wide variety of family-friendly subdivisions, from leafy, older neighborhoods like Palma Sola Park to the mansions of Riverview Boulevard. Buyers value the area’s good schools and houses of worship, mature landscaping and easy access to the beaches. Lots of development activity is happening on the far west side of the city, where construction is under way on Palma Sola Trace and Palma Sola Bay Club.

Big changes are also afoot in downtown Bradenton, where plans have been approved for nearly 1,400 new residential units. Among them is the $200 million Promenade at Riverwalk, rising near Rossi Riverfront Park, which will eventually include 350 luxury condominiums in three high-rise Mediterranean-style buildings. Offices, retail shops and a hotel will be part of the mix, and longtime civic observers are pinning hopes on the Promenade’s revitalizing downtown’s retail sector. On the drawing board nearby is Downtown City Central, the former city hall site on Manatee Avenue and 15th Street West, where a mix of condominiums and commercial and retail space is planned.

The mile-wide Manatee River is just one of many charms of the established neighborhoods surrounding downtown Bradenton. Neighborhood parks, the South Florida Museum and Bishop Planetarium (home of 58-year-old Snooty, the oldest manatee in captivity), Manatee Players Riverfront Theatre, ArtCenter Manatee, a picturesque marina and a big public library are attracting homebuyers who are snapping up older properties and investing in the future of their community by renovating them.

Kendar Homes, for example, is undertaking a $30 million restoration of the historic, 1920s-era Riverpark Hotel on 10th Street West. Forty condominiums are planned for the old “Pink Palace,” as are a first-floor restaurant and hair salon.

Also downtown, working artists have transformed five formerly run-down blocks south of Manatee Avenue into the Village of the Arts. The City of Bradenton pitched in with brick-edged sidewalks and street lighting. Now, in an area that at the end of the last millennium was decidedly edgy, people flock to Friday evening art walks. While the initial flurry of activity has slowed, say area realtors, in Village of the Arts, recent home sales ranged between $280,000 and $350,000. The days of the $70,000 bargain bungalow are gone. 

THE BEACHES

Follow the sunset for a trip back in time to the historic fishing village of Cortez, on the northern mainland shore of Sarasota Bay, a quick hop from the Cortez Bridge that leads to Bradenton Beach. A walking-tour map produced by the Cortez Village Historical Society takes you past the picturesque old wood cottages and fish houses of the village’s pioneering families, 92 of which are on the National Register of Historic Places. The annual Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival, held the third weekend in February, draws more than 20,000 visitors to hear live music, admire nautical arts and crafts and lap up steaming plates of fresh seafood. 

Then hit the beach. Like the rest of Manatee County, the island communities of Anna Maria, Holmes Beach and Bradenton Beach—all on Anna Maria Island—are in transition. There’s still a “sand in your shoes” sensibility, but they’re no longer quite so laid-back, thanks to the current rise of multimillion-dollar beachfront condominiums. A free trolley that runs the length of the seven-mile island is an excellent way to capture the communities’ essence.

The city of Anna Maria, on the island’s north end, is home to lively waterfront seafood restaurants, beguiling boutiques and a popular municipal fishing pier with a breathtaking view of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. New construction here is restricted to single-family residences.

Simple beach duplexes remain, but on North Shore Drive, stunning multimillion-dollar homes line the Gulf of Mexico. Many of them are weekend retreats for people from Tampa, Lakeland and other parts of Florida. TripAdvisor.com last fall—to some people’s surprise—named Anna Maria its favorite vacation destination in America.

On Holmes Beach, simple 1960s-era concrete block beach cottages still predominate; they’re the kind with terrazzo floors that make fast work of sweeping out sand. Here you’ll also find Key Royale, a canal-front community of executive homes where a lot of updating is going on. Boaters especially are drawn to Key Royale’s easy access to Tampa Bay and the Gulf.

Even Bradenton Beach, perhaps the area’s funkiest beach community, is growing up. The days of the inexpensive beach bungalow are over, realtors say, giving way to sophisticated condominium communities.

LAKEWOOD RANCH AND EAST COUNTY

Explosive growth has taken place throughout Manatee County. And nowhere is this more evident than in the master-planned community of Lakewood Ranch, east of I-75 between S.R. 70 and University Parkway. In just 10 years, 6,000 homes have been built in this “live, work, learn and play” community, along with a medical center, public and private golf courses, shops, restaurants, a major commerce center where some of the area’s biggest businesses are relocating, and even a polo club. Lakewood Ranch won the Southeast Builders Conference’s prestigious Grand Aurora Award for best master-planned community.

“There’s a tremendous sense of community here,” says Dave Minton of Bosshardt Realty Services, himself an early Lakewood Ranch settler. “We’ve got some 80 clubs and organizations, everything from bird watching to empty nesters to book reading to music to Rotary to whatever you can think of.”

Last fall, Lakewood Ranch developers announced they will build an additional 8,000 new homes northeast of the intersection of Lakewood Ranch Boulevard and S.R. 70 starting in 2007. And they recently introduced two new villages: Country Club East and The Lake Club, where 1,100 custom residences will range from $3.5 million to $8 million.

Lakewood Ranch has spurred a development boom in east Manatee County, and several country club communities are located nearby on S.R. 70: The River Club, Rosedale Golf and Country Club, Peridia Golf and Country Club, and Tara Golf and Country Club. Nearby, the long-established single-family neighborhoods of Braden Woods, Braden Pines and Panther Ridge offer estate homes on heavily treed sites of more than one acre. The newest communities here are Lennar’s River Place and Neal Communities’ The Harborage on Braden River. 

An ultra-posh golf resort, The Concession, has joined the mix in this fast-growing eastern part of Manatee County. A few miles east of Lakewood Ranch, The Concession is carved from 1,232 acres of pristine oak hammocks. Golf greats Jack Nicklaus and Tony Jacklin designed the course; the community is named for a historic moment in the final round of the 1969 Ryder Cup, when Nicklaus conceded a two-foot putt to Jacklin, resulting in the first tie in match history. Golf Digest named it “Best New Private Course of the Year” for 2006, and, at $125,000, the joiner’s fee is one of the area’s steepest.

The other major thoroughfare extending east and west from I-75 is S.R. 64, and along it are several significant new residential developments. The largest is Heritage Harbour, an amenity-packed, 2,500-acre master-planned community on the banks of the Manatee River. Rye Wilderness, with 280 home sites on lakes and nature preserves, is under way six miles east of I-75. It’s located near a bucolic 145-acre county park with river access. And WCI Communities’ new Tidewater Preserve, at 48th Street East, is going up; when complete, it will have 927 homes on 374 acres of riverfront property, nearly 90 acres of it preserved wetlands.