Kolter Land Partners, <\/a>master developer of Serenoa, had previously sought approvals in 2021 for Serenoa Lakes, a grocery-anchored retail plaza with three outparcels on Sawgrass\u00a0 Bay Boulevard. It would have served as the final phase of the master-planned community.<\/p>\n After the town center plans fell through, Kolter sold the site to WMG for \u00a0$4 million in March 2025.<\/p>\n According to a county staff analysis, the development would be inconsistent with the designated Conservation Subdivision future land use of the Serenoa PUD. Commercial uses are not permitted under the Conservation Subdivision category, according to staff, but a self-storage facility could be \u201can appropriate support use for the adjacent residential uses.\u201d<\/p>\n Lowndes Law<\/a> attorney McGregor Love, representing project applicants WMG, said that the project would meet current restrictions outlined for commercial development at the property.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the concept plan shows are that the restrictions that are in place for commercial development \u2014 the performance standards, the open space requirements, impervious surface area, floor area ratio requirements\u00a0 \u2014 this concept plan is consistent with all of those,\u201d he said. \u201cA development of this intensity could be permitted by right, right now, without a public hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n With several developing outparcels set to be located in front of the proposed facility, Love argued the project would not be directly on the right-of-way or generate any consistent traffic.<\/p>\n \u201cIn terms of offsite impacts, self-storage has among the lowest offsite impact compared to any commercial use because of its low traffic generation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Board members voted 6-1 in favor of recommending denial at Wednesday\u2019s Lake County Planning & Zoning meeting due to staff concerns about the inconsistent future land use and vehement opposition from area residents.<\/p>\n Serenoa resident Rachel Williams said the self-storage facility does not align with the vision the community wants to see.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not anti-growth, as we\u2019re all the product of growth, but we just want it to make sense, and we want it to work with our community and not against,\u201d she said. \u201cIt also doesn\u2019t make sense when there are roughly 28 storage facilities within a 15-mile radius of us between Clermont, Davenport and Horizon West, which will be connected to us next year.\u201d<\/p>\n Residents also questioned the project\u2019s proposed height of 75 feet, allowed under the existing PUD zoning, but taller than all residential homes in the surrounding area. With the project\u2019s proposed location only a few hundred feet from the Lake-Orange county line and developments continuing to spring up in the nearby Four Corners area, several residents argued the self-storage facility would be better placed on available land in nearby Orange County.<\/p>\n \u201cThe height is a big issue, and its presence is so inconsistent with the lifestyle, the views and everything about the area,\u201d Palms at Serenoa resident Mark O\u2019Halloran said. \u201cWe\u2019re getting ready to be connected to Orange County and financial incentives in Lake County \u2014 land, building and almost all costs \u2014 are lower. There\u2019s a strong incentive to grab what you can and build what you can on the Lake County side. There are huge tracts of property that are better designed just for this on the Horizon West side and are just as close. They don\u2019t need to do that here.\u201d<\/p>\n Following resident comments, the board voted to recommend denial by 6-1 vote. District 5 board member Dan Tatro was the sole \u2018no\u2019 vote.<\/p>\n The proposed self-storage development is scheduled for a public hearing at the Lake County Board of County Commissioners meeting on April 7.<\/p>\n WMG has been active in South Lake County since 2023, when it bought several retail pads <\/a>within Plaza Collina in Clermont. Last year, it opened Chipotle, FifthThird Bank, Heartland Dental, Panda Express, and White Castle at Plaza Collina.<\/p>\n WMG also purchased a 95-acre site set to serve as the urban center<\/a> of the master-planned Crossprairie community in St. Cloud. Construction will start this year on the multi-phased project that includes retail, hotels and housing.<\/p>\n Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at jwilkins@orlandosentinel.com<\/a> or 407-754-4980. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook<\/a> and\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lake County Planning & Zoning Board recommended denial of a proposed rezoning that would allow construction of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[558,7903,28,41324,2174,11476,114,139,141,140,1976,1974,480,5136,914,41325],"class_list":{"0":"post-184913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-county","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-four-corners","12":"tag-lake-county","13":"tag-lake-county-developments","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-orlando","16":"tag-orlando-headlines","17":"tag-orlando-news","18":"tag-osceola-county","19":"tag-osceola-county-developments","20":"tag-real-estate","21":"tag-st-cloud","22":"tag-state","23":"tag-sub-county-region"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Previous](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/TGS-L-serenoa-commercial-center-01.jpg\")
Previous plans for the final phase of the master-planned Serenoa community showed a neighborhood grocery store and shopping center. The town center plans were replaced by plans for a proposed self-storage facility after WMG Development bought a portion of the property for $4 million in March 2025. (Site plan by Heidt Design)<\/p>\n![\"WMG](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/TGS-L-Serenoa-self-storage-01.jpg\")
WMG Development is looking to develop a 120,000-square-foot self-storage facility just off Sawgrass Bay Boulevard within the Serenoa PUD in Lake County. (Concept plan by KPM Franklin)<\/p>\n