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4-story Wiscon condos planned

The developer will bring a proposal for a three-building, 288-unit project on Wiscon Road to county planners April 10.

By DAN DeWITT
Published April 1, 2006

BROOKSVILLE - Hernando County may soon see its own version of the high-rise condominium projects common in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

The buildings proposed by GCMB Partners LLC of Seminole are hardly skyscrapers, but at 60 feet and four stories high they will tower above most residential projects in Hernando County.

The company plans to build the three buildings, with a total of 288 condominiums, on 44 acres on Wiscon Road, about 2 miles west of U.S. 41. The project, which will come before the county Planning and Zoning Commission on April 10, is the latest indication that development in and around Brooksville is rapidly spreading, even to land that once might not have been considered prime for development.

The property is currently zoned for agricultural use, and much of it is designated as rural on the county's future land use map. It also includes wetlands and lies partly within the flood plain of nearby Peck Sink, a sinkhole that drains thousands of acres in and around southwest Brooksville.

The county planning staff is recommending approval of the plan, though it would require a 75-foot natural buffer to protect the wetlands that flow into the sink. It also would require that all roads and the floors of the buildings be above the flood levels established in a watershed study that currently is being completed by the county and the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

Ginger Garnett, a local real estate broker who is the local representative for GCMB, was not available for comment Friday.

Deputy County Administrator Larry Jennings said the studies of this and other drainage basins in the county are expected to be approved by Swiftmud within a few months and should not hold up the project.

One reason the project is appropriate for this site, Jennings said, is the development on surrounding land, including the new Brooksville Regional Hospital, which borders the site. Doctors offices and commercial areas are expected to follow the hospital, which opened last year.

The county is requiring the developer to build a frontage road to connect it with nearby parcels on Wiscon.

Jennings mentioned the project at a joint meeting between the County Commission and the Brooksville City Council on Thursday. At the same meeting, Bill Geiger, the city's community development director, said that plans for about 4,100 new houses, apartments, townhouses and condominiums have been approved or will soon be submitted to the city.

Among those projects is one that includes three-story condominiums being built by longtime developer Charlie Sasser about a mile northeast of the GCMB site. Geiger's list did not include the GCMB condominiums, which are outside the city. Also, because the GCMB land does not border the city limits, it cannot be annexed immediately, Geiger said.

Dan DeWitt can be reached at dewitt@sptimes.com or 352 754-6116.

[Last modified April 1, 2006, 00:55:17]