Little Big Town

Little Big Town

DEVELOPMENT by Sean Roth | Real Estate Editor

Little Harbor is a misnomer. The name just doesn't have the pizzazz or the grandeur to convey the new project under way in the South Shore region of Ruskin.

"Little" just doesn't seem to convey the 1,850 residential units - including 400 single-family home lots - 600 docks and dry slips and an 80-acre preserve. In total, the 540-acre Little Harbor project, being developed by Fort Myers' EarthMark Cos. LLC, is projected to have a sales volume of $1.5 billion and will take a minimum of seven years to build.

Little, it's not.

In a way, Little Harbor's name mirrors its developer's understated approach to self-promotion. EarthMark, which develops master-planned communities throughout Florida, stays low key.

Even in its home city, the company is a conundrum. Many Realtors and real estate insiders admit to knowing little more about the company than that it developed half of Herons Glen golf community and then sold the remaining 900 acres to Taylor Woodrow for $70 million. Size guesses range from somewhere between larger than the typical company to smaller than Arvida, one of the largest developers in Florida.

"We haven't really heavily branded the name," says Michael Rosen, EarthMark's chief executive officer. "This is not really a business strategy per say. We just choose to really focus on the properties themselves."

Still, the Arvida comparison is somewhat natural: Although it has far fewer properties, EarthMark's development game plan is similar. The company looks to accumulate large land holdings to develop residential developments around amenities.

And EarthMark recently hired Ed Hill, Arvida's former president of operations for Central Florida, as chief operating officer. With Artisan Park at Celebration, Victoria Park in Deland and Weston in Fort Lauderdale as projects on his resume, Hill says he was attracted to EarthMark because of its and Rosen's focus on creating unique, primarily resort-style amenity-based properties.

"You don't have to be big to be effective," Hill says. "In the case of EarthMark, they have some very key assets. There certainly are opportunities out there. But rather than growing big, I want to grow smart. That's my intention."

The company currently has active development operations going in four communities: the Key Largo Harbor Marina, the luxury resort Maranu in Knights Key in Marathon, Mariner's Club in Key Largo and Little Harbor.

Hill's priority is the Ruskin development. Although on a per-unit basis the 3,300-unit Heron's Glenn project was larger, by most any other measure, the Hillsborough County development is the biggest project in the company's portfolio. It's also one of the largest developments in Ruskin.

Building the Harbor

Designed as a coastal village, the project will feature single-family homes, townhomes, condos, a 'condo-tel,' restaurants, offices, retail, wet slips, a marina with dry boat storage and three different club houses. Every residential type has a water view, whether it's of the bayfront, a canal or Serenity Bay. Sections of the community will be gated, but the majority of the project, including the main retail, restaurants and office areas, will be open to the public.

Due partially to good land purchase prices in Ruskin, property in the development is also priced lower than comparable waterfront property in the surrounding already-developed areas.

"Lots that would sell in deep-water, deed-restricted neighborhoods up there for $500,000 to $700,000 would cost $1.5 million to $2 million in Sarasota," says John Cannon, president of Sarasota's John Cannon Homes Inc., one of the four approved home builders in the community. "Ruskin is still a bedroom community. It was all surrounded by tomato fields up until just a few years ago."

Coincidentally, part of the design for the community was inspired by successful Arvida communities, such as WaterColor in Seagrove Beach, says Richard McGinniss, managing director for Little Harbor.

Lengthy development

Little Harbor started life as an old marina. It was once owned by the tomato-farming Dickman family, one of the founders of the city of Ruskin. The family attempted to develop the area into a residential development in the 1980s, but Ruskin "just didn't have enough of a critical mass to support it," McGinniss says.

EarthMark bought its first piece in a land auction and acquired the remaining five parcels from the Dickmans, the Seminole Indian tribe, Destiny Corp. and others over the following seven years. During that period, EarthMark developed a resort called the Mariner's Club Bahia Beach on part of the land. That resort has since been renamed Little Harbor.

The company can afford to wait and spend time letting all the pieces in a development fall into play, Rosen says, because EarthMark runs two mitigation banks, the Big Cypress Mitigation Bank and Treasure Coast Mitigation Bank, which bring in regular income. Mitigation banks allow builders or developers to buy credits for the impact of their construction on wetlands and other areas of the environment. The company is currently working to setup a new mitigation bank in West Virginia.

"If we weren't patient, we never would have gotten the Big Cypress Mitigation Bank approved," Rosen says. "It took five years. We are known for our perseverance."

The company needed that stick-to-itiveness for the battle with controlled-growth advocates and environmentalists over the Little Harbor site. In the battle over zoning, the focus fell on a 160-acre piece of the property north and south of Shell Point Road. The company originally planned to put 500 units on the property along with a golf course. That plan was scrapped later, and it was agreed that EarthMark would trade 80 acres of the original 160 to the county in exchange for 13 acres containing an existing sewage treatment facility.

Infrastructure on the project began about two years ago. The first vertical construction of the town home buildings started last month. It's scheduled for completion by the end of the year.

"This year we will probably sell $100 million," McGinniss says.

The entire community is scheduled for completion in seven to 10 years.