City Manager's Annual Report Annual Report 2018 | A Year In Review | Page 6

P
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R
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SOUTHERN GROVE
THE FUTURE OF PSL’S ECONOMIC GROWTH
F or more than a decade, Port St. Lucie’s leaders have looked to the long, green
stretch of undeveloped land adjacent to Interstate 95, between Tradition Parkway
and Becker Road, as the perfect place to grow local jobs. In fact, as far back as
2004, these nearly 1,300 acres in the southern part of Tradition were designated
as Port St. Lucie’s best location for a jobs corridor in a report by the renowned
Urban Land Institute (ULI).
After all these years of envisioning a future for PSL’s jobs corridor in Southern
Grove, 2018 marked a significant turning point for this endeavor.
In March, the property owner, Tradition Land Company, announced it would
liquidate its interests in Port St. Lucie, and sold its residential land in Southern
Grove to homebuilder Mattamy Homes, which is recognized as North America’s
largest privately owned home builder. This gave the City the unique opportunity
to solidify its long-term vision for this region. Tradition Land Co. agreed to transfer
its remaining 1,223 acres of Southern Grove to the City. For in-depth details on
this land transfer, visit www.cityofpsl.com/southerngrove.
Overall, Southern Grove is a 3,605-acre Development of Regional Impact (DRI),
which is part of the larger 8,200-acre region known as Tradition. This land is
approved for a mix of uses, including research and development, industrial,
commercial and residential units.
Southern Grove includes the Tradition Center for Innovation, made up of
Cleveland Clinic Tradition Hospital (which announced in October 2018 it will
become a full member of Cleveland Clinic), Keiser University, the Florida Center
for Bio-Sciences building and the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies.
The Southern Grove jobs corridor also includes the developing Tradition Center
for Commerce, which will be anchored by City Electric Supply’s new 411,000
square-foot manufacturing facility that broke ground in September 2018.
With the transfer of the undeveloped land in Tradition Center for Commerce,
Port St. Lucie’s jobs corridor is primed for opportunity. There are no other similar
vacant, large commercial and industrial parcels in Port St. Lucie – and all of
South Florida – that could be developed into this type of jobs corridor, with the
potential to create more than 22,500 jobs.
Southern Grove
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In an effort to take a big-picture, long-term look at planning for the entire jobs
corridor, the City went back to the Urban Land Institute. Its land planning experts
spent a week in the area and interviewed more than 100 people to recommend
development strategies. The panel stressed development of this sort takes
“discipline and patience” and likely will take decades to fulfill.
CITY OF PORT ST. LUCIE 2018 ANNUAL REPORT