Sarasota, Lakewood Ranch real estate developer and noted mentor dies at 89

When New York businessman and developer Frank Cassata retired to Florida in 1999, he had big plans of playing golf.

“It didn’t take very long for him to get bored with golf,” Neal Land & Neighborhoods President John Neal says, citing an off-cited refrain of new retirees. “Frank, as a retired guy, worked almost every day.” 

That led to multiple residential real estate projects across Manatee and Sarasota counties Cassata had a hand in over the next two decades, including several in Lakewood Ranch. Cassata died July 12 in his home in Osprey, south Sarasota County. He was 89. 

Cassata got his start in Florida real estate when he ran into Pat Neal, John's father and founder of Lakewood Ranch-based Neal Communities, one day while both were looking at the same property. Thus began a longstanding relationship with the Neal family. 

“He was a great mentor to me,” John Neal says. Growing up in a real estate family, Neal thought he knew all there was to know about the industry. “But in the time I spent with Frank, I learned there were different ways to buy or develop land and build homes. Frank built about 70,000 homes in New York, so he knew things.”

Neal adds that Cassata was especially talented in buying land and dealing with people. “Frank had a special knack for understanding land and people, I think because of his background,” John Neal says, noting Cassata was a nontraditional business person who wasn’t formally trained. “He learned it by doing it.” 

Cassata immigrated to New York from Italy in 1954 when he was 21. He began his career selling paper bags to local vendors in New York and went on to develop and build residential and commercial development in Long Island and Florida through his company, the Cassata Organization. 

Cassata had other ties to Sarasota-Bradenton developers such as Mike Miller. Together, they worked on a 40-condo project Porto Vista and mixed-use project Cassata Square in downtown Venice. 

Despite his work ethic, Neal says Cassata still made time for his family. 

“He treated me as a member of his family and would call me almost every day for the last 20 years,” he says. 

Cassata was also known for helping people who needed it, which is why he formed the Cassata Family Foundation, a nonprofit in New York. 

“(He was) the biggest hearted guy I ever ran into in my life,” says J. Geoffrey Pflugner, an attorney and shareholder at Icard Merrill in Sarasota. “He would do virtually anything for anybody who needed a hand.” 

Pflugner was Cassata’s attorney for roughly 40 years. 

“He knew a good piece of property when he saw it. Once he decided it was something that made sense, he figured out a way to acquire it,” he says.  

That’s something Neal can attest to. He says Cassata passed on valuable knowledge of the industry without needing much of anything in return and magnified Neal’s business by bringing properties to him for the company to develop. 

But above all Neal remembers Cassata as a charismatic businessman. Neal recalls him helping the owner of Palermo Pizza get started in Sarasota. 

“Frank basically bought the equipment and put this guy in business,” he says, adding that Cassata wanted the business to do well. So Cassata put a magnet advertising the pizza place on the side of his Rolls Royce, a car Cassata was well-known for driving. During meetings, he would encourage everyone to try the pizza. 

“He would just talk up the business so much,” Neal says. “Here’s this guy, who’s worth millions of dollars, and he’s hawking pizza. When I’d drive down to Sarasota, we’d meet at Palermo’s, and we’d have a slice of pizza and salad.” 

Neal remembers sitting in the restaurant one time when a person walked in, looked around and said, ‘There’s no way this is the No. 1 restaurant in Sarasota County,’ before walking out. 

“So what Frank had essentially done was tell all of these people to go eat at Palermo’s and put it on Yelp,” Neal says. “At one point Palermo’s Pizza was the No. 1 restaurant in Sarasota County on Yelp."

"I think he impacted a lot of people's lives in Sarasota," Neal adds. "I know from his family that he impacted a lot of people’s lives in New York."

More proof of that impact? Some 400 people, says Pflugner, attended a memorial service held for Cassata last week.