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A Highlands Metropolis?

AtlanticBlue Has Big Plans For A New Community

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By Jim  Konkoly | Highlands Today

Published: June 24, 2008

SEBRING – From their presentation to the Highlands County commissioners Tuesday, you can say one thing about the folks who run the Atlantic Blue corporation. When it comes to planning a new, self-sufficient and sustainable city in a remote area of southern Highlands County, which many people describe as "the middle of nowhere," they sure plan big.

Texas-Size Big
Wrap your mind around the numbers that AtlanticBlue officials and their consultants gave on their proposed new city, which would dwarf the most recent new, stand-alone city in Florida, Ava Maria.
If their "conceptual master plan" becomes reality, the new city on the 65,000-acre Blue Head Ranch would have:

* One hundred square miles, of which 31,000 acres would be preserved for all time as a nature preserve for species including the Florida pant her;

* About 20,000 acres of development, which would include 54,600 separate housing units that would house a total population of 125,000 people;

* Included within the 20,000 acres developed would be up to 2.5 million square feet of retail shopping and almost 900,000 square feet of office space, which would make the new city the employment center of not only Highlands but also several surrounding counties; and

* Blue Head Ranch would still farm 9,000 acres, which would be dedicated for what Lisa Jensen, chief operating officer of AtlanticBlue, called "long-term agriculture."

The numbers may sound staggering, but Allison D. Megrath said Tuesday's presentation of AtlanticBlue's "conceptual master plan" was just the first step of dozens of steps over several decades to build the new city.

Megrath is a consulting planner with Land Planning Solutions, a planning firm headquartered in Naples.
If this city becomes a reality, "the build-out time is about 50 years," said Bruce Johnson, an ecologist hired by AtlanticBlue to help turn large tracts of the ranch into a conservation/nature preserve.

Green spaces, including parks, hiking trails, walking/biking/skating paths and "green belts" will run through not only the residential but also the retail and office-park areas of the development, Megrath said.

"It will be a complete community, not a residential subdivision ...," Megrath said. She said the developed area will be built in "compact, walkable neighborhoods."

"Literally, it's really building a city from day one," said Michael Wright, who started his third week as Highlands County's chief executive officer. Wright said this proposed city, if it happens in the dimensions laid out in the "conceptual master plan," will become the major employment center in this central-south Florida region.

Megrath said future planning would nail down precisely where the new county government offices and schools would go in the new city.

Both AtlanticBlue and county officials stressed that this is only the initial step in a many-step process that will take many years to complete.

Wright likened it to "being at the 10,000-feet level" as a starting point, with many steps and years needed to bring the plans down to ground level so construction workers can start moving dirt and paving roads and putting up buildings.

Public Input
The public can hear more details, and ask questions, when AtlanticBlue officials take their plans to a public hearing before the Highlands County Planning and Zoning Commission on Aug. 12.

If all goes well, county officials might, after review by the state, approve preliminary plans for the proposed new city just before Christmas, at the Dec. 22 county commission meeting.

"This will create a self sustaining, fiscally neutral community," Megrath said. Asked what "fiscally neutral means," she answered that 100 percent of the necessary infrastructure for the city, including roads, sewers, water lines and treatment plants, will be paid for by AtlanticBlue, without any Highlands County tax dollars.

Ray Royce, who is a Lake Placid town councilman, executive direct or of the Highlands County Citrus Growers Association, and executive director of The Heartland Agricultural Coalition, said people should not be carried away by the large numbers associated with AtlanticBlue's plans for its Blue Head Ranch.

"What this was all about today is planning," Royce said. Whether the new city ever gets built or not, or ever reaches 125,000 people, he said, "they are committed to doing the best planning that they can."

To reach Jim Konkoly, call 863-386-5855 or e-mail jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com

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