Developer plans to resurrect shuttered community

SARASOTA — Sarasota County commissioners approved a developer's plans to resurrect Sunrise Golf Club, a community shuttered for more than a decade.

Canadian developer Mattamy Homes, one of the most prolific builders in the region, plans up to 425 home sites on the course and surrounding parcels, according to a story in the Sarasota Observer, sister paper of the Business Observer. Mattamy paid $14.3 million earlier this year for the combined properties, which are on the outskirts of Palmer Ranch in south Sarasota County.

Mattamy partnered with Sarasota-based Vanguard Land Ventures on the development, which will include three unnamed neighborhoods southeast of the intersection of Clark Road and Interstate 75, with an entrance on Honore Avenue.

“It's just a terrific location there in Sarasota,” says Ed Suchora, president of the Mattamy Homes Tampa-Sarasota division, in a previous interview with the Sarasota Observer. “Anything you can find west of the Interstate — on the true Sarasota side — just seems to be more desirable than anything.”

The developer will provide 44 acres of open space — 4% more than the 30% required by the county.

Area developer Rod Connelly sought to redevelop the course into nearly 700 condos in the mid-2000s, but nearby residents protested the plan. They contended the previous owner of the golf course's lease prevented new development through 2022.

The homeowners associations representing Sunrise Golf Club Estates and other neighborhoods signed an easement and contract with Vanguard earlier this year, allowing the partnership to redevelop the abandoned course. The covenant, which was originally drafted with Connelly's firm, Civix, requires construction of a linear park within the buffer surrounding the property, according to the Sarasota Observer story.

With Mattamy's Enclave at Forest Lakes and coming development at Sunrise, along with two more proposals from Manatee County homebuilder Medallion Homes, there are at least four derelict golf courses under redevelopment or have owners actively seeking to do so in Sarasota County.