It’ll be years, if not decades, before all 1,200-plus acres of the Port St. Lucie jobs corridor – known as Southern Grove – are eaten up by development. Until then, cattle will continue to munch their way across the fields.
Rancher Ralph Cain III, of Crescent Bar Three Cattle Co., leased 1,223 acres on the west side of Interstate 95 more than a year ago from then-Tradition Land Co. to allow his cattle to graze. That lease was transferred to the Port St. Lucie Government Finance Corporation when the city took ownership of Southern Grove last year.
Cain holds a second, separate lease west of Southern Grove where Mattamy Homes plans to build houses. As the Government Finance Corp. starts to sell off or lease parcels to developers and other end-users, Cain’s cattle-grazing lease will begin to shrink. Just how many acres Cain’s cattle use was not known as of press and attempts to contact Cain were not successful.
Under the terms of the lease, Cain pays annually $12 per acre that’s actively used for grazing and $3 per acre for land under lease but not grazed. That payment is retroactive from the prior year. Based on the number of acres under lease, the annual amount ranges from $3,669 to $14,676.
“It doesn’t generate” a lot of income for the city, Community Redevelopment Director Wes McCurry told St. Lucie Voice. But the cattle grazing does provide some revenue and a low-intensity use for lands that would otherwise sit fallow.
McCurry couldn’t say how much grazing is actually happening on city-owned land, but noted that the majority happens west of I-95. “It’s pretty common” to have cattle-grazing leases on undeveloped agricultural land until development moves in.
The city has recently approved a handful of projects within the jobs corridor, including a 3-acre sale for retail, a nearly 10-acre sale for industrial, and has set aside 25 acres for Somerset Academy Inc.’s proposed career-technical charter school.
As for what will surely be an ever-changing lease agreement between Cain and the city, McCurry said the city is required to give at least a 30-day notice that the property will no longer be under the cattle grazing lease. The notice is meant to give the rancher time to relocate his cattle and modify any necessary fencing to keep the cattle from the sold/leased parcels. Cain’s 5-year lease will expire in November 2022.
