Pastureland near a new apartment complex on County Road 466 is back on track for development.
The Meucci property is located across County Road 466 from Spring Arbor Village and on the opposite side of Cherry Lake Road from the new Lake Sumter Apartment Homes.
The Meucci property had been eyed for development in 2016, but the plan for housing, apartments and retail stalled. The plan is back on track and was the subject of a presentation Monday night before the Lady Lake Planning & Zoning Board. The revised plan calls for more apartment units, fewer single-family homes and down-sized commercial space.
The revised plan has 576 apartment units, up from 250. The number of single-family homes is 359, down from 474 in 2016. The new plan calls for 38,000-feet of commercial space, down from 120,000 square-feet of commercial space which was laid out in the 2016 plan.
The Lake Sumter Apartment Homes are located on the Sumter County side of Cherry Lake Road. The apartments are hooked up to water and sewer from Lady Lake, due to an agreement reached well over a decade ago.
Greg Beliveau of LPG Urban and Regional Planners made a presentation before the Lady Lake Planning & Zoning Board, which voted to forward the consideration of the future of the property to the Lady Lake Commission.
The elephant in the room was the anticipation of the growth in traffic that will occur due to the development of the Meucci property. And the traffic won’t be limited to County Road 466.
“Cherry Lake Road has become a bypass road to get to Micro Racetrack Road,” Beliveau acknowledged during his presentation.
A traffic light has been added at the intersection of County Road 466 and Cherry Lake Road, because of the Lake Sumter Apartment Homes. But more traffic lights and turn lanes could be in the future.
The Meucci property is currently tranquil pastureland where cows graze and hay is grown and sold.
Shirley Janye Henjum Meucci, the family matriarch, died Jan. 3 at age 93. She was a member of Hope Lutheran Church in The Villages and had been living at American House assisted living in Wildwood at the time of her death. She moved to The Villages in 1996. She left three sons, including Triston Meucci, who is frequently seen taking care of the property.
