The ground was broken, literally, on Thursday as people got down in the dirt to plant vegetable seedlings at Orlando’s first agrihood community, The Grow.
The developer, Pulte Homes, called it a first-plantings ceremony — in place of a traditional groundbreaking event — to mark the launch of the project in northeast Orange County just west of Bithlo.
“Today we’re doing our first planting, really kick-starting the farm and, really, the heart and soul of this community,” Blake Lapinsky, vice president of sales for Pulte, told the group of about 50 gathered at a farm stand near the garden at the front of the property along East Colonial Drive.
Lapinsky said PulteGroup started a soft launch last month that will continue for about three months due to the high level of interest in the community — over 5,000 leads. He said construction on models is expected to start within 30 days so they’ll be ready for a grand opening planned for early summer.
After hearing from a few others involved in the development, people headed to the garden and got down into the dirt to sow collard greens, rainbow chard and other leafy greens. Then they gave seedlings a much-needed drink using watering cans emblazoned with the development’s stylized name.
The Grow is the brainchild of Robert Zlatkiss, president and founder American Land Development, and Dwight Saathoff, the owner of Project Finance & Development LLC, who spent more than a decade trying to secure the necessary permits for the project, one of a handful of agrihood communities in the state.
Saathoff told the group how the idea for The Grow came to him about 10 years ago while his wife was undergoing chemotherapy for colon cancer.
“I just had a dream, I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to have a community that was centered on farming and agriculture as opposed to, let’s say, a golf course,” he said.
David Martinez, one of the landowners and principal at real estate development and investments company Marbell Group, said his family bought the property over 40 years ago, and he loved spending time there.
“I feel very lucky that we kind of all had a similar vision for the land; we want to be respectful for the land,” Martinez said. “Not just doing it to sell homes, doing it because we truly believe in it.”
After the ceremony, Lapinsky and Doug Hoffman, vice president of development for Pulte, sat down with GrowthSpotter to provide additional details about The Grow.
Hoffman said infrastructure work is continuing, and construction of the first houses for sale could start within the next 60 days.
Pulte is already doing what Lapinsky called VIP presales to those among the thousands of leads.
“We started taking our first build orders, our first contracts here late last month, (and) we’ve got appointments set up pretty much every day here for the next month and a half,” he said, adding he expects to go into a full sales launch in early summer.
Hoffman said the multiphase project — with an expected buildout of up to 10 years — spans about 1,200 acres with a little over 2,000 units. There will be townhomes and single-family bungalows — the smaller rear-loaded products — along with 50-foot-wide and 60-foot-wide front-loaded lots all the way up to half-acre and acre lots.
Because of the variety offered in The Grow, Lapinsky said Pulte, currently the exclusive builder, offers something for almost everyone: “Every single buyer who wanted to be here could find a product that fits their life cycle, their need and their budget.”
He said smaller homes will start at around 1,500 square feet with detached homes ranging up to about 4,200 square feet. The home styles offered were curated by the company’s design group to provide popular options while matching the agrihood theme of the community, he said.
The Pulte website for The Grow shows five different home collections with 25 available floor plans, each with multiple exterior options. A spokeswoman said home prices will begin in the $400s.
The development will feature a 9-acre working farm with a community-supported agriculture program at its core. Also planned are 21 acres of community gardens, a 20-acre park, 12 miles of recreational trails, a street for farmers’ markets and a farm-to-table restaurant, among other agricultural amenities. Over 165,000 square feet of commercial space is also planned.
Agmenity, a national leader in community farm design and management, will oversee farm operations with an emphasis on sustainable crop cultivation, educational programs and seasonal harvests. Residents will have no farm maintenance responsibilities.
VHB of Orlando is the community planner, Donald W. McIntosh Associates is the civil engineer and surveyor, LRK of Celebration is the architect, MiGre Engineers of Longwood is the electrical engineer, and Dix.Hite+Partners is the landscape architect.
The Urban Land Institute defines agrihoods as “single-family, multifamily or mixed-use communities built with a working farm or community garden as a focus. ULI estimates that there are more than 200 agrihoods across the United States, spanning at least 30 states, from rural communities to major cities.
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.
