More apartments headed to east Manatee

LAKEWOOD RANCH — The hot east Manatee County apartment market is primed for another project.

The latest, Creekside Apartments, will be a 256-unit complex off Lakewood Ranch Boulevard, according to Lakewood Ranch Commercial Realty President Brian Kennelly. The developer is Winter Park-based P.A.C. Land Development Corp., which also built the 272-unit Lost Creek Resort at Lakewood Ranch apartment complex on 24 adjacent acres in 2011.

The new project will be on 17 acres, and construction could begin by November, say officials at Lakewood Ranch, one of the largest multifamily master-planned communities on the Gulf Coast. Other apartment projects in the works in the area include The Venue at Lakewood Ranch, a 237-unit complex across from Lakewood Ranch Main Street.

The Lost Creek project, meanwhile, reached 95% occupancy in less than a year, and P.A.C. Land Development Corp. sold that complex to an Illinois real estate firm in September 2012 for $39.25 million.