County to spend $32.5 million for new complex

MANATEE COUNTY — Manatee County has approved spending $32.5 million to purchase 161 acres along State Road 64 for a new operations center to serve the fast-growing areas of Lakewood Ranch and Parrish.

According to an article in the East County Observer, a sister paper of the Business Observer, the land will be purchased for $187,488 per acre and the money will come from county reserves ($16.8 million) and the utility department ($15.7 million).

County officials say the purchase will improve infrastructure maintenance efficiency in adding miles of roads, pipes and traffic signals each year.

Manatee County's field crews currently have facilities in western Manatee County near GT Bray park and another near Tropicana in the central part of the county, which covers more than 800 square miles. County officials say it had become inefficient to serve the eastern part of the county from those facilities.

The site is at the corner of State Road 64 and Lena Road, adjacent to the Lena Road Landfill and the Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant. A county release says the site will host its Public Works department, utilities field infrastructure and fleet support services. Eventually a district operations center, fleet service and other support facilities for the Manatee Sheriff’s Office will be added. 

“This concept is a shared, centrally located county government complex to improve efficiency of services in the central/eastern portion of the county,” says County Administrator Cheri Coryea in the statement.