Former Sarasota County Commissioner Jon Thaxton calls deal to acquire 5,777-acre Orange Hammock Ranch in North Port for conservation ‘off the charts’

State leaders voted Tuesday to approve one of the most significant conservation deals involving a Sarasota County property in decades, dedicating $19.5 million in Florida Forever money toward the purchase of Orange Hammock Ranch in North Port.

Once slated for 15,000 homes, the ranch will now remain undeveloped forever, a move that conservationists have sought for many years because of the property’s importance for water quality, its relatively pristine condition and location linking other conservation areas to create a broad swath of protected land.

Leading environmental advocates have long viewed Orange Hammock Ranch — formerly known as the McCall Ranch — as the most important preservation opportunity in the region. It is the largest undeveloped property in Sarasota County, according to a state summary of the conservation deal.

"It’s a big deal," said Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast President Christine Johnson, who helped facilitate the acquisition.

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Located in the Myakka Island region, Orange Hammock Ranch adds to the cluster of preserved land around Myakka River State Park, a conservation area encompassing more than 120,000 acres.

Former Sarasota County Commissioner Jon Thaxton said he began working to preserve the Orange Hammock Ranch property nearly three decades ago. When he recently heard a deal was imminent, he grabbed a chair to steady himself because he was so overwhelmed that it was finally coming to fruition.

"This one’s off the charts; this one for me is the cat’s meow," said Thaxton, who has hunted turkey on the Orange Hammock property. "It’s what you work a lifetime to get."

The Florida Cabinet — which includes Gov. Ron DeSantis and three other statewide elected officials — voted unanimously Tuesday to authorize the purchase of Orange Hammock’s 5,777 acres through Florida Forever, the land conservation program run by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

"I’ve been through the Myakka area, I know some of the merits of what you’re pushing forward," Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, a Cabinet member, said before the deal was approved.

Johnson traveled to Tallahassee to speak in favor of the purchase. Representatives from the Sierra Club and Florida Conservation Voters also encouraged the Cabinet to buy the property.

"This is the type of bold and effective project ... that these conservation programs were envisioned to do," Florida Conservation Voters Government Relations Director Lindsay Cross told the Cabinet.

Cross argued that protecting land in Southwest Florida is particularly important because of the region’s rapid growth.

The property will be managed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as the Orange Hammock Wildlife Management Area.

The total price tag for the deal is $21 million, with the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast chipping in $1.5 million. Sarasota County had set aside $9 million through the county’s environmentally sensitive lands program to use as matching funds for acquiring Orange Hammock Ranch, but state officials decided not to partner with the county so the $9 million can now be used for other land purchases.

The Orange Hammock deal is unusual in that it’s not a conservation easement, and instead involves acquiring the ranch outright. That is unheard of locally in recent years when it comes to state-financed conservation deals.

State officials have favored conservation easements, which are cheaper and keep the property under private ownership and management. Such deals prevent development, but also limit public access.

The Orange Hammock Wildlife Management Area will be open to the public, although what activities will be allowed has yet to be determined.

Orange Hammock Ranch has a turbulent history that Johnson described as something out of a Carl Hiaasen novel "with twists and turns and money-making schemes and bankruptcies."

The ranch twice was surrendered to lenders in a span of five years because the owners defaulted on their loans. The first time occurred in the wake of the Great Recession when plans for the massive 15,000-home Isles of Athena development fizzled.

A group led by West Palm Beach developer Brian Tuttle bought the ranch for $65 million in 2005 and had it annexed into North Port with plans for a $1 billion development on the scale of Lakewood Ranch or Palmer Ranch, but in 2009 Tuttle’s group gave up the property to the lender and former owner, South Florida Sod Inc., which ran a sod farm on the land.

South Florida Sod declared bankruptcy in 2014 and the ranch was turned over to the property’s lender, Orange Hammock Ranch LLC.

State records list Richard Becker and Thomas Corr, both of Vero Beach, as the managers for Orange Hammock Ranch LLC.

Noting the property’s history of failed ventures and the fact that developers have shown little interest in recent years (a bankruptcy auction in 2014 drew only lowball offers), Thaxton said "This parcel has been screaming for decades that highest and best use is conservation."

Throughout the ownership turmoil environmental advocates kept working to purchase the land for conservation. They succeeded in getting the property added to Florida Forever’s priority acquisition list, but the right deal took years to materialize.

"We’re tenacious," Johnson said.

Johnson credits leadership at DEP and the agency’s Division of State Lands with finally prioritizing the acquisition and working to overcome previous obstacles.

Among the defining features on Orange Hammock Ranch are two sloughs that channel water through the property.

Alderman Slough flows through the ranch and feeds water into the Snover Waterway, a large ditch that flows into Myakkahatchee Creek and eventually into the Myakka River. Myakkahatchee Creek is the source of North Port’s drinking water.

Orange Hammock Slough also flows through the ranch and into a reservoir on the RV Griffin Reserve that is part of the Peace River Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority, which supplies drinking water throughout the region.

In addition to protecting the region’s water supply, protecting the ranch adds to a growing cluster of conservation lands that are important for wildlife habitat.

Thaxton said preserving Orange Hammock Ranch "exponentially increases the biological value of every single piece of conservation property around it."

Large expanses of undeveloped, connected habitat are important for animals such as bears and panthers. Orange Hammock Ranch will help tie together conservation areas spanning from the Peace River to the Myakka River, creating an important wildlife corridor between the two watersheds.

Johnson noted that each male Florida panther needs about 120,000 acres of territory, roughly the acreage currently protected from development in the Myakka Island region.

Black bears, quail, turkey, deer and wood storks also have been spotted on Orange Hammock Ranch, which has an abundance of undisturbed natural wetlands, Johnson said. She added that sod farming only was done on a small portion of the property.

"It is really pristine; it is gorgeous," said Johnson, who has toured the property on an airboat.

And while it has plenty of wetlands, Orange Hammock Ranch also has rare, undisturbed dry prairie habitat that has largely been gobbled up elsewhere because of its suitability for development.

Orange Hammock Ranch is on the north side of a section of Interstate 75 that runs east/west through North Port. It borders the RV Griffin Reserve and the Longino Ranch conservation area.

Thaxton said the Orange Hammock Ranch property could become an important eco-tourism draw for the North Port region, but he declined to give his thoughts on what kind of public uses the state should allow.

"I am very much an advocate of the primary focus needs to be on protecting the natural resource," Thaxton said. "To the extent that other recreational opportunities can be accommodated while that primary goal is accomplished, let’s talk."