St. Lucie County needs more than $100 million to construct the water and sewer utilities required to serve 28,843 houses planned in the unincorporated areas outside of Fort Pierce and Port St. Lucie.
The county’s plans include building a new water plant on county-owned land on Taylor Dairy and Indrio roads and setting the stage for the construction of a new sewer plant on the site, county records show.
The plans also call for expanding the Holiday Pines sewer plant to provide service to projects in northern and central St. Lucie County until the Utilities Department can afford the new sewer plant.
The five largest projects up for development in unincorporated St. Lucie County are Stark Ranch with 12,000 units near Glades Cut-off and Rangeline roads; the Fort Pierce and Destination resorts with a total of 6,000 units between Florida’s Turnpike and Interstate 95; Visions at Indrio with 4,500 units at Indrio Road and I-95; and Cloud Grove with 4,000 units between I-95 and Johnston Road.
Other major projects include the Fort Pierce Wave Park on Midway Road near I-95; the St. Lucie County Entertainment District near the county Fairgrounds on Okeechobee Road/State Road 70; the Cabo Rio Recreational Vehicle Resort; the Fort Pierce Recreational Vehicle Resort; and the Seagrove subdivision on U.S. 1 near the Indian River County line.
St. Lucie County commissioners voted unanimously June 7 to seek proposals from lenders to provide the county a $20 million line of credit to start designing and constructing water and sewer lines for those and other projects.
In the meantime, county utilities officials can work on strategies for obtaining the rest of the money needed for the water and sewer expansion, county records show.
The county also intends to seek grants from the federal Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA), Drinking Water State Revolving Fund and Clean Water State Revolving Fund programs, county records show.
Development projects and equivalent residential units:
- Stark Ranch (Oak Ridge):
12,000 units - Indrio and Interstate-95:
4,500 units - Destination Resort: 4,500 units
- Cloud Grove: 4,000 units
- Fort Pierce Resort: 1,500 units
- Wave Park: 800 units
- Seagrove: 500 units
- Emerson Views: 200
- Orange Estates: 200
- Entertainment District: 200
- Creekside: 168
- Cabo Rio RV Resort: 90
- Round Island: 70
- Fort Pierce RV Resort: 65