Home Depot Abandons Plan for New Store in Lakewood Ranch

LAKEWOOD RANCH — Plans for a future Home Depot Store at the intersection of Rangeland Parkway and Lorraine Road in East County will not move forward, says a representative of the corporation. Thousands of residents who quickly mobilized an opposition are celebrating the news.

The project had not even moved beyond its pre-application phase, with a pre-application narrative and conceptual design the only publicly accessible records on the county’s Accela portal. A pre-application meeting with the applicant and county staff was scheduled for Friday, September 13.

However, on Sept. 6., a representative of The Home Depot confirmed to TBT by email that the corporation was “dropping” its contract for the potential future site, citing “a number of land development challenges.” The representative also confirmed that the pre-application meeting would be canceled.

Though a formal application for the project had never been submitted to the county’s Development Services Department, the pre-application narrative described a potential future re-zone request for three parcels—a combined 15.86 acres—at the northwest corner of Rangeland and Lorraine. The parcels would require a rezone from Agricultural to Planned Development Commercial (PDC) to accommodate the proposed 135,632 square foot box store.

All three parcels identified in the pre-application narrative were assigned a future land use category of Residential-1. According to Manatee County’s Comprehensive Plan, the Res-1 category's purpose is to designate “areas of low-density suburban residential character, which may be interspersed with compatible short-term agricultural activities.” The category also allows for “medium” commercial development.

The future land use category may have played a role in The Home Depot Corporation’s decision not to proceed. The development application process requires various reviews by county staff to ensure any proposed project adheres to the land development code and is compatible with the comprehensive plan. The RES-1 category may have presented challenges for the proposed high-intensity commercial development to meet review requirements.

Despite the project only having just begun the pre-application process a little more than two weeks ago, citizens who caught wind of the potential Home Depot store coming to the residential area quickly sprung into action.

Residents first learned of the proposed future development after a local realty group posted to their Facebook page that a new Home Depot was coming to Lakewood Ranch. Less than a week later, the Bradenton Herald also reported that Home Depot had submitted a re-zone application.

Upon hearing the news, several residents who were concerned to learn that a big box store might be developed amid their residential community shared those concerns with neighbors and online. 

A few of the residents created a Facebook group titled Neighbors Against the Home Depot at Lorraine and Rangeland, which quickly grew to more than 1,000 members.

A petition launched by the group had already collected more than 2,300 signatures, and a demonstration was being organized by the residents to be held the day before the pre-application meeting outside the downtown county administration building.

Before The Home Depot Corporation announced it would cancel its contract, TBT spoke with two opposition group organizers.

Speaking by phone, Maryann Goetsch explained that she wasn’t opposed to the subject location being developed but believed a Home Depot would not be a good fit for the area.

“This is a residential neighborhood, five minutes from seven schools,” Goetsch told TBT. “There shouldn’t be a big box store that brings in semis and tractor-trailer traffic anywhere near where children bike, walk, and scooter to school.”

Goetsch added that lower-intensity commercial development—a preschool, small store or cafe, or medical office—would be much more compatible with the surrounding single-family homes.

Another of the group’s organizers, Dan Creek, called the proposed Home Depot site “poorly thought out.”

“When my wife and I first moved to Lakewood Ranch almost five years ago,” Creek explained, “one of the things we loved about the area was the master planning concept of the community. It seems that this concept will not be applied to this area of land along Lorraine if a box store is developed here.”

Creek and Goetsch listed several concerns that they and their neighbors had with a Home Depot coming to the proposed location, including increased traffic, destruction of the wildlife habitat, potential for increased flooding, noise pollution, light pollution, and the risk of such a large commercial development negatively altering the area’s community aesthetic.

“These were not concerns homeowners anticipated facing when they first bought their homes in an area that they understood was zoned residential and agricultural,” said Creek.

Creek added that his opposition to a Home Depot store was solely about the proposed location and not Home Depot itself.

“I’d like to be clear about that,” Creek offered. “I love Home Depot! I shop there all the time, in fact, I’m a shareholder. I’m not against Home Depot. I’m against a Home Depot being placed adjacent to a 2,000-plus door residential community.”

After hearing Friday evening that the pre-application meeting would be canceled and the company would not be moving forward with a formal application, both of the group organizers called the news “amazing.”

A post shared to the Neighbors Against the Home Depot at Lorraine and Rangeland Facebook group announcing The Home Depot Corporation’s decision quickly gathered more than 50 comments in celebration and nearly 200 positive “reactions.”

With the pre-application meeting canceled, the group members have also canceled the planned demonstration that would take place later this week outside the Manatee County Administration building.

Dawn Kitterman is a staff reporter and investigative journalist for The Bradenton Times covering local government news. She can be reached at dawn.kitterman@thebradentontimes.com.