ST. CLOUD, Fla. – A new community development project is set to bring hundreds of homes, retail space, a school and even a fire station.
It’s not much to look at now at Old Hickory Road, but after plans are finalized the entire plot of land will be redeveloped into its own bustling community and add that extra boom to St. Cloud.
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“The project is pretty big, I mean quite frankly it can be considered it’s own community,” James Dicks said.
Dicks is the CEO of Dix Developments. His company, based out of Lake Mary, won the bid to develop the Roan Bridge project.
The project would provide 625 single family homes, 599 multi-family home units, townhomes, a fire station and even a K-8 school.
Dicks said this project will bring more opportunities for families as well as the city.
“The national board of realtors in 2018 had a survey that said around $77,000 goes down to every single family that comes into the community… that’s the underlying economic impact so as you can see, 1,224 units will provide a pretty substantial economic impact to the community,” Dicks said.
The $400 million project will utilize around 276 acres of land.
The project, according to Dicks, has been in the works since 2017, and started revving up around November 2020 even with the COVID-19 pandemic halting some production.
Dicks said his company handles these types of large-scale projects regularly, but does recognize some obstacles as things get underway.
“There’s always challenges, there’s challenges around every single corner, every single day is a new challenge whether that’s working with South Florida water management district, whether that’s working with the city, the county, or the state, but what we really try to do is to mitigate those and we know from experience what we can do and what we can’t do,” Dicks said.
Approval for the project is set to close around September, then development of the area is set to happen around three to four months later.
The city of St. Cloud sent out this statement in reaction to the Roan Bridge project:
“Roan Bridge will be a great addition to St. Cloud as it promotes one of the city’s strategic goals for growth management to create a vibrant, progressive, and diverse community through sustainable planning for all generations.”