Manatee Fruit transfers $40M in land

BRADENTON — As part of its plan to create a new master-planned, mixed-use community development, farming company Manatee Fruit Co. transferred 1,640 acres in western Manatee County to three entities it owns for a total of $40.18 million.

The price equated to $24,495 per acre.

The land is located along El Conquistador Parkway between Cortez Road and 53rd Avenue West in Bradenton.

Manatee Fruit Co. has announced plans to develop much of that farmland into Lake Flores, a community of up to 6,500 residences — in a mixture of single-family homes, condominiums and apartments — 3 million square feet of retail and office space and two hotels.

In a written statement to the Business Observer, the firm says the land swap was part of an internal restructuring process to better allocate its land holdings and promote a more efficient management system. The transfer, it says, does not change the company's future plans for development on these properties.

“This restructuring was an internal adjustment designed to enable our corporate operations to run more effectively,” Whiting Preston, president of Manatee Fruit Co., says in the statement.

The three affiliates, Lake Flores I LLC, Lake Flores East LLC and Pen Bay I LLC, mortgaged the land back to Manatee Fruit Co. for a combined $38.17 million.
To learn more about the Lake Flores development, click here.