Site plans filed with Orange County show a new Home Depot store planned for land in Horizon West across from the future site of a Valencia College campus.
The Schofield Retail Center Land Use Plan from Kimley-Horn submitted to the county on March 12 shows the store rising on about 17 acres of a 62-acre parcel on Schofield Road west of S.R. 429 on the Lake County border. The applicant, real estate attorney Mark Thomson with Shutts & Bowen LLP of Orlando, is requesting the county rezone the land from A-1 (citrus rural) to PD (planned development district) to allow building the store on it.
Efforts to reach Home Depot representatives by phone and email were not successful.
County property records list the land’s owners as Fox Heartland LLC (6.29% interest), and Fox Kay LLC and Fox Commons LLC, (46.855% interest each) with a West Palm Beach mailing address.
Plans show a 134,807 square foot store with 106,651 square feet of interior space and a garden center of 28,156 square feet. The store would have 506 parking spaces for vehicles and eight for bicycles.
Home Depot is the latest big box store to set its sights on Horizon West. Last year, Lowe’s Home Improvement filed plans for a 134,148-square-foot store in the Hamlin Town Center.
Valencia College owns 155 acres directly across the street from the Home Depot site, which it bought in 2006 for $6.58 million from the same three entities that own the land where the store would go. The nearest Home Depot store to that location is about 10 miles north on West Colonial Drive in Clermont, but the company is planning a new store on U.S. 27 in Davenport.
According to information from its website, Home Depot stores average 105,000 square feet of indoor retail space, with another 24,000 square feet of outside garden area. The DIY and home improvement retail giant has more than 2,300 stores in the United States, Canada and Mexico, plus more than 500,000 employees.
State Road 516, a 4.4-mile toll road under construction by the Central Florida Expressway Authority, will pass by the property on its south side. The Lake/Orange Expressway, scheduled for completion in 2027, will connect U.S. 27 in Lake County to S.R. 429 in Orange County.
The new store would border Wellness Way, an economic corridor with several master-planned communities growing in south Lake County near the Orange County line. The area has seen some of the largest land sales in Lake history over the past two years, and its comprehensive plan currently provides for up to 19,000 residential units across over 15,500 acres southeast of Clermont.
About 1,000 feet west of the proposed Home Depot location, Schofield Road turns into the Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway. Lake County commissioners voted unanimously in September to adopt a resolution designating the road for Kirk, a prominent conservative activist, who was fatally shot Sept. 10 while speaking during an event on the Utah Valley University campus in Provo, Utah.
Brian Bell can be reached at bbell@orlandosentinel.com. Have a tip about Central Florida development? Email Newsroom@GrowthSpotter.com. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook and LinkedIn.
