FORT PIERCE – A development that started two years ago as a townhome proposal in unincorporated St. Lucie County has taken several turns on its way to approval. On Dec. 1, Fort Pierce commissioners signed off on its latest — and final — form: a single-family neighborhood planned for an 11.5-acre Sunrise Boulevard property the city annexed to host the project.
The applicant’s Vero Beach-based engineer of record, Blaine Berkstresser, provided commissioners the historical context for the development initially proposed by Dt Ventures 1 LLC.
“In December 2023, we met with city staff to discuss a potential townhome project located in unincorporated St. Lucie County,” he said. “After meeting with staff, it was suggested this area would be better suited for single family. We updated our site plan for 52 single-family [units], applied for annexation in February 2024 and submitted our site plan in April of 2024. We went through different departments and presented to the Planning Board in May 2025.”
Even though Berkstresser and his client tweaked their plans to please the Commission and its advisory board at almost every turn, they still encountered speed bumps with the city’s revamping of its planned development process and the Planning Board’s aversion to community school bus stops on thoroughfares after a student was struck and killed by a car on Oleander Avenue in 2021. Although the Planning Board initially approved the proposal last July, the City Commission voted to table it later the same month in search of site plan changes. By the time advisory board members saw it again in September, they rejected it because the bus stop was then located on Sunrise Boulevard instead of the community’s entryway.
“So, we met with staff, commissioners and talked with some of the residents,” Berkstresser explained. “The Planning Board wanted us to address the bus stop. We updated our plans and went back in October to the Planning Board. Our updated site plan looks drastically different than what we presented to the Commission in July. As was stated, we have now incorporated an internal loop system [and] eliminated two lots in order to reduce the density.”
During his prior presentation, Planning Director Kevin Freeman explained how the School District itself nearly tanked the approval at the end with its disapproval of the interior school bus turnaround and exit onto Sunrise Boulevard. That shocked and dismayed some Planning Board members when they realized that St. Lucie Schools officials were not as adverse to exterior bus stops as they were and were proposing a bus stop north of the entrance on Sunrise Boulevard.
“We did receive a subsequent email dated Oct. 24,” he explained. “The School District stated after reviewing the attachments that the bus will run over the curbs when navigating the loop. There was a recommendation to install a bus shelter on Sunrise and create a small parking area instead of a loop.”
That sent the applicant and his engineer back to the drawing board one final time, which resulted in a design satisfactory to all parties.
“The present site plan incorporates the original Planning Board and School District recommendations,” Freeman concluded. “The applicant increased the radii of the loop not long before this presentation, not affected substantially to what you see presented tonight. There will need to be very small amendments to that site plan prior to second reading.”
In his subsequent presentation, Berkstresser briefly touched on that last-minute change.
“The School District was nervous about the bus leaving and making a right out of this neighborhood,” he said. “So, I told them I would update the plan to increase this radius so we could show the bus would have no issue making this turn out of the property.”
Berkstresser primarily focused on the benefits of the project to the city and surrounding area, which is a hodgepodge of adjacent city and county properties.
“Improved amenities were brought up in the Planning Board,” he recalled. “Originally we were showing a clubhouse and a pool area in the middle of the development. Through some redesign, we’ve added a tot-lot and a closed-in dog park. We’re also going to have a walking path around these dry ponds. One of the things we heard from the neighbors and the Planning Board was about existing trees on the site. Typically we don’t do tree mitigations at this stage, but we took a look at it, and this plan represents the trees that we will either be saving or relocating.”
After subsequently describing the project’s enhanced landscape buffering – which put 51 feet between the homes and the closest residence to the south – the engineer of record highlighted a benefit to the surrounding neighborhoods.
“Code only requires us to put sidewalk along our frontage,” he said. “We’re proposing to run an additional 1,031 feet of sidewalk all the way to the intersection of Bell Avenue. We think it might be beneficial to the neighbors because this will enable them to use our bus stop. There’s not a lot of good areas for kids to wait, [so] they could walk to our stop or parents could even drop kids off.”
A final benefit coordinated with the Fort Pierce Utilities Authority will even help the environment.
“We’ll be extending almost 1,300 linear feet of four-inch force main to our property line,” Berkstresser concluded. “All of our existing neighbors in this area are on septic. This force main allows for future connections, and I believe FPUA is trying to run sewer so those people can convert from septic.”
Most commissioner questions afterward revolved around the dog park – which will be open to the public via an external gate and small parking area – and tweaks to the off-road bus loop. The latter particularly pleased Commissioner Michael Broderick.
“I think that resolves that issue instead of trying to shift us back out onto Sunrise, which I think is clearly dangerous,” he said.
Mayor Linda Hudson agreed.
“We appreciate the additional work you did on it,” she said. “This is kind of the way it should happen, I think.”
The City Commission then voted unanimously to approve the request on first reading. The second reading had not been scheduled at press time.