The biggest man-made lagoon in US just opened near Tampa. Now one is planned in Parrish
A master-planned community of more than 3,000 homes and possibly a hotel, built around a man-made 4.5-acre lagoon, is coming to Parrish.
Site preparation is underway on the south side of Moccasin Wallow Road, about 1.5 miles east of Interstate 75 for the new community, called Seaire (pronounced sea air).
Metro Development Group, a privately-held, Tampa-based company founded in 2003, is the developer.
Metro recently opened its Mirada master-planned community in Pasco County, and bills its 15-acre lagoon as the largest human-made lagoon in the country.
Mirada’s lagoon is also open to nonresidents. Visitor daily passes range in price seasonally from $10 to $45 per person.
The Parrish lagoon at Seaire will also be open to the public, but will likely be more limited than at Mirada due to its smaller size.
No resident of Seaire will ever be turned away, John Afflebach, Metro’s marketing director, said this week.
The first phase of 1,939 homes is planned on 600 acres of the 1,555-acre site, formerly known as Parrish Lakes.
Parrish Lakes dates as far back as 2009, one of many development projects put on hold by the Great Recession, the Bradenton Herald previously reported.
The second phase, planned for a 2025 start, would include 1,360 homes.
Hawk Parrish Lakes LLC, which has the same Tampa street address as Metro Development Group, bought the property for $37.8 million in February 2022, according to the Manatee County Property Appraiser’s website.
Builders previously announced for Seaire include Lennar, Biscayne Homes, D.R. Horton and Dream Finders Homes.
Lot sales could be underway in the first three months of 2024, Afflebach said, and prices could range from the high $200,000s to over $1 million.
Parrish-North River and Lakewood Ranch are the two fastest-growing areas of Manatee County.
The Parrish area has been attractive to buyers due to its proximity to Tampa, St. Petersburg, Bradenton and Sarasota and its growing number of restaurants and other amenities, the company said.
Over half of the interested homebuyers are searching from out-of-state, Metro said.
In 2015, former Manatee County planning official John Osborne estimated 23,095 dwelling units already had been approved or were pending approvals for the North River-Parrish area.
The number has likely grown since the 2015 estimate.
In North River Ranch alone — the largest master-planned community in the Parrish area — the population could eventually reach 28,000 by build-out in the next decade, developer John Neal has previously said.
Mirada is the third lagoon opened by Metro Development Group and MetroLagoons. Their first lagoon opened in 2018 in the Pasco County community of Epperson and was the first of its kind in the United States.
Buyers are coming from markets such as New York, Chicago, and Atlanta. Mirada, which launched home sales in 2020, has sold more than 1,200 homes since then.
Metro Development Group has other lagoon communities in various phases of planning and development, including in Pasco, Duval and Osceola counties.
Metro says its lagoons use up to 100 times fewer chemical products and 50 times less energy than traditional swimming pools.
They also fully comply with the most stringent water quality standards, and consume up to 30 times less water than a typical 18-hole golf course, the company said.
Seaire is Metro’s second project in Manatee County. Its first, Glen Creek, is at 2355 26th Ave. E., across the street from Mixon Fruit Farm. Homes in the gated community sell from the high $300,000s.
