Fort Pierce, FL – Plans for a surf community west of Fort Pierce have been abandoned as the property owner pursues a data center and commercial development.<\/p>\n
A rezoning application submitted June 17th proposes changing the 200-acre Koa Bay site northwest of Interstate 95 and Midway Road.<\/p>\n
Under the proposal, 174 acres would be designated for light industrial use to accommodate a data center. <\/p>\n
The remaining 26 acres would receive commercial zoning for a hotel, gas station, restaurants and businesses.<\/p>\n
The rezoning would not authorize immediate construction. <\/p>\n
If approved, the applicant plans to select a partner to develop the data center. That company would submit a site plan and obtain city approval.<\/p>\n
Willow Lakes LLC owns the property. Chad LaBonte, Koa Bay project owner and principal of Devcon Enterprises, said developers could not raise enough capital to build the Wavegarden surf park.<\/p>\n
The planned community previously included a surfing lagoon, nearly 1,000 residences, retail and office space, two hotels and surfside bungalows.<\/p>\n
Construction never began, and the site remains largely unchanged except for a man-made lake created by mining operations.<\/p>\n
LaBonte and attorney Lee Dobbins said financing problems and electrical transmission lines complicated the residential design.<\/p>\n
Two sets of power lines cross the property through easements.<\/p>\n
Developers now consider that electrical infrastructure an advantage for a data center, which would require substantial power capacity.<\/p>\n
Payments for surf memberships and future sessions are being refunded.<\/p>\n
No development partner, construction schedule or opening date has been announced.<\/p>\n
If rezoning is denied, the property could still be developed without the surf park.<\/p>\n
LaBonte said developers are searching for another St. Lucie County location for the surfing project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fort Pierce, FL – Plans for a surf community west of Fort Pierce have been abandoned as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[16930,154820,41975,154818,33480,2152,47,3886,154817,15690,171,173,172,154821,154819],"class_list":["post-386457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-businesses","tag-chad-labonte","tag-data-center","tag-data-center-plan","tag-developers","tag-development","tag-fl","tag-fort-pierce","tag-fort-pierce-koa-bay","tag-plans","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-surf-community","tag-surf-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386457","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=386457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}