County Commission Quietly Purchases Park Space from Developer

During Tuesday’s stacked Manatee County Commission meeting, an item regarding a county purchase of private land for a future park needed to be pulled from the consent agenda before being passed with no discussion or presentation. A closer look at the deal–which will see the county purchase 75 acres adjacent to both Piney Point and a development that will include almost 2,000 housing units–throws up several red flags.

In December of 2021, Tampa-based development company Metro Development Group purchased approximately 808 acres off of Buckeye Road and adjacent to Piney Point for $32 million (approximately $40,000 per acre) through an associated LLC. The property had a long history of development attempts under the name Curiosity Creek, a nod to a small waterway that cuts through the parcel.

In 2005, Carlos Beruff submitted an application to the county for Medallion Homes to build a 1,924-unit mixed-use development with 50,000 square feet of commercial space on farmland that had been owned by Jones Potato Farm. That project was put on the back burner during the downturn that led to the Great Recession and did not come back before the BOCC until Beruff sought and received another 150,000 square feet of commercial entitlements in 2013.

Jones Potato Farm seems to have reacquired the property, as the company was listed as the seller last December when it was sold to Hawk Curiosity Creek LLC (Metro Development Group). The developer is currently seeking to build 1,466 single-family detached and semi-detached units, 328 single-family attached units, and 256 multi-family units on the property, and would maintain the existing commercial entitlements.

While there have been no discussions of a park in the area and likewise no parks slated for the parcel in the county’s capital improvement plan projects, the contract approved Tuesday will see the county purchase just under 75 acres of the 808-acre site for about $66,000 an acre, plus associated costs. The county’s purchase will include the entirety of the portion of the parcel that borders Piney Point’s retention ponds. The reason the item had to be pulled from the consent agenda Tuesday was to add a temporary access easement from the property owner to the county because the site of the future park currently has no public access.

If you are wondering why the county would pay a premium price to purchase land for an unplanned park that will essentially create a buffer between Piney Point and a new development, while serving as a defacto amenity of the development itself, you are not alone. If you are thinking that it is equally curious that the same board that went haywire over a previous board’s approval of a county land purchase to extend the life of its landfill while securing needed land for future county service centers didn’t even need to discuss jumping this "park" ahead of other planned projects or whether it was a good fiscal decision, again, join the club.

I can’t fully say whether or not purchasing the land in question at this cost was good public policy, and that’s because there was zero public information or public conversation involved in the acquisition.I can say that as someone who has spent many years analyzing public policy, approving such a purchase in the manner it was pushed through does not pass the smell test.

For starters, I would have liked to have heard a commissioner ask why the developer was not donating the parcel to the county since having a county-maintained park between its homes and the retention pond of thelong-troubled former phosphate processing site would seem to benefit the developer more than anyone else, especially if they are not losing any density entitlements.

As we headed into the new board’s first meeting following an election in which it is now fully controlled by members who are in lockstep and all share the same handlers and benefactors, one of the primary concerns was that there would be no one left to question such matters. And that is the real reason why developers and their lackeys worked so hard to change the composition of the board over the past two election cycles.

Indeed, it is the inconvenience of dissent that seems to prevent special interests from being content with a 5-2 or even 6-1 majority, and why they pony up hundreds of thousands of dollars to erase potential dissent even when not enough exists to swing a single vote away from their favor. They simply don’t want the discussions to be had, lest the public begins to ask questions.

Pay close attention, my friends, as I suspect there will be many more such items being flown under the public’s radar in the months ahead.

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County governmentsince 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University, where he earned a degree in Government. He later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Clickherefor his bio. His 2017 novella, Sacred Hearts, is availablehere.