Lakeland and Auburndale officials are at odds over a developer’s plans to build an industrial business park within the Central Florida Innovation District. Auburndale is poised to give final approval on Dec. 18 to construction of the warehouse facility on 76 acres of prime land near Florida Polytechnic University.
Lakeland Commissioner Stephanie Madden sounded an alarm at this week’s Lakeland commission meeting, saying the planned warehouse north of Pace Road and east of the Polk Parkway goes against all of the plans city and county leaders have adopted for a science-and-technology hub anchored by the university.
Madden said although the land is near Interstate 4, the area isn’t meant for a business park, with tractor-trailers pulling in and out all day. “(It’s) that one area in Florida Poly that they’ve been desperately trying to keep as a place for a live-work-play innovation district for our future, to take us into the next decades.”
If the warehouse is approved, Madden cautioned, “People across the world one day will look back and go, ‘Gosh, I can’t believe you wasted that opportunity.’ Everyone would, of course, want to be next to Florida Polytechnic like they’d want to be close to MIT.”
Innovation District history
Florida Polytechnic University was established on April 20, 2012 to advance and become a focal point for the state’s high-tech economy. Its principal proponent, then state Sen. J.D. Alexander, envisioned the university and surrounding areas as a high-tech corridor that would bring the brightest science, technology, engineering and math students to the area, along with high-skills, high-wage jobs to Polk County. Florida Poly currently has about 1,600 students and 31 areas of study.
In 2019, officials with the cities of Lakeland and Auburndale, along with Polk County, agreed to work together to create the Central Florida Innovation District, an area around Florida Poly that would be a location “ready to drive the future of innovation and technology,” according to the CFID website.
Leaders dreamed of a place where Florida Poly students could do research and transition into those high-skill, high-wage tech jobs at future neighboring facilities, along with associated shopping, hotels and restaurants.
Lakeland invested $10 million into building Pace Road and the Florida Department of Transportation built the $42 million SunTrax Center, where car manufacturers are doing next-generation research on autonomous vehicles and trucks with the latest high-tech computers and gadgets. It officially opened this year.
Florida Poly latest strategic plan is the University’s “blueprint for the future and consists of a five-year strategic plan and the vision for a robust research park adjacent to campus.”
In 2022, Florida Poly joined forces with International Flavors & Fragrances Inc., a Fortune 500 company specializing in taste and smell research, to open a Citrus Innovation Center on the university’s campus.
And, as part of the Innovation District, on Monday, the Lakeland City Commission heard the first reading of a planned 2,044-acre solar panel farm just south of Florida Poly, owned by Williams Corporate Holdings, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The proposed industrial park
The center of the controversy between Lakeland and Auburndale is the plan for nearly 76 acres east of Florida Poly and north of Pace Road.
The property was annexed into the Auburndale city limits in 2022. In December 2022, a change in the Future Land Use amendment was unanimously passed by the Auburndale Planning Commission in a 5-0 vote.
The property is owned by Knight PC Holdings LLC, but is under contract for sale to the Lincoln Group, LLC, which has submitted a proposal for development. Instead of a solar energy research facility or a computer microchip manufacturing plant, they proposed building a 500,000-square-foot “industrial planned unit development.”
Auburndale’s Planning Commission heard a zoning amendment request on Oct. 3 and, based on the site plan provided to them at that time, they recommended denial, with a 3-2 vote.
The Lincoln Group then went back to the drawing board. They halved the square footage and added a solid, six-foot masonry wall along the north property line to separate the use from residential properties to the north. The wall is depicted behind each commercial outparcel and stormwater pond to “help as a visual barrier to heavier industrial uses,” Auburndale’s minutes read.
The Planning Commission then gave it a thumbs up and submitted it to Auburndale’s City Commission for a first reading on Nov. 20. The second and final reading is on Dec. 18.
Lakeland’s opposition
Lakeland City Manager Shawn Sherrouse informed Madden about the Auburndale review of the matter hours before Auburndale’s city commissioners were scheduled to hear about the zoning and land use changes. Several Lakeland commissioners had left or were leaving town for the Thanksgiving holiday and she said she felt like the sole defender for the city and the Innovation District.
She met with city staff, gathered up their materials and speaking points, and went to the Auburndale City Commission meeting to speak against the warehouse. She told them she was not speaking for the entire commission because that was not allowable, but she made the city’s voice heard.
Auburndale city officials said the warehouse space is flexible and could be turned into some kind of STEM manufacturing facility. That language is also in the developer’s plans.
Madden acknowledged that the property buyers had reduced the planned project from 500,000 square feet to 250,000 square feet. But, she said, “The large buildings means you just can’t have anything else…it’s going to just be such an intense use. It’s just so big.”
Madden used talking points gleaned from when Auburndale’s Planning Commission rejected the plan in October for a 500,000 square-foot warehouse, saying a major traffic study will need to be completed and the facility could impact the city’s maintenance requirements because Lakeland officials agreed to maintain the road, right of ways and sidewalks off Pace Road.
“The proposed plan in no way supports the objectives of the Central Florida Innovation District and creates significant concerns among City of Lakeland staff about our ability to realize the economic development potential generated by the public investments that have been made in this strategic area over the past 25 years.”
Lakeland Commissioner Stephanie Madden, speaking to the auburndale commission on Nov. 20
Madden addressed Auburndale commissioners on Nov. 20 and then read her statements to Lakeland commissioners at Monday’s meeting.
“The proposed truck-oriented uses will have significant negative maintenance implications on Pace Road/University Boulevard within the city’s maintenance jurisdiction at the Polk Parkway interchange, particularly due to asphalt shifting created by stopping and turning movements,” she said.
The Lincoln Group, LLC, also known as the Property Company of Florida, made the request to have the land use designated as a “Regional Activity Center.” Madden said that brings to mind an area like Lakeside Village, with shops, restaurants and movie theaters not the development of a warehouse. But they also wanted the zoning classified as “Industrial Planned Unit Development.”
The Auburndale City Commission agenda item reads that “the zoning classification would allow the applicant to construct two research and development buildings, approximately 462,840 square feet total, one 499,575 square foot e-commerce and logistics building and five commercial outparcels.”
It further states that “Buildings #1 and #2 are reserved for research and development, light manufacturing, financial institutions and/or information sciences. Building #1 and #2 would prohibit distribution as the primary use or any outdoor storage. Building #3 allows for E-commerce, distribution, industrial mixed use, research and development and light manufacturing, health technology, office space and vocational institutions. Building #3 prohibits outdoor storage, car lots, and gas stations,” although gas stations can be built on out-parcels.
Tim Campbell, a principal with the law firm of Clark, Campbell, Lancaster, Workman, & Airth, told Auburndale City Commissioners last month that the site plan actually does adhere to the Innovation District plans.
“It has been designed consistent with the ideas of the Innovation District, to try and attract those types of uses,” Campbell said according to the meeting minutes. “The Lincoln Group has done a good job, they have been reactive and responsive in working with the city, and working closely with the Central Florida Development Council and Florida Polytechnic University on their concerns. It is the Lincoln Group’s goal, much like the city’s, to have a very high-class business park development while providing some commercial retail along the front or office uses.”
Auburndale City Commissioners approved both changes on the first reading, but the matter will go back before the city commissioners for final approval on Dec. 18.
Setting a precedent
Madden is concerned that if a precedent is set for a first warehouse, other nearby property owners will then want to do the same.
Lakeland Commissioner and Mayor Pro Tem Sara Roberts McCarley voiced her frustration at not having some kind of point person to “bird dog” the issue so Lakeland wouldn’t be caught off guard.
“To know what to have our hair on fire about and what not to, it’s really critical to each and every one of us,” McCarley said. “Our public continues to express their concern about our over-development and our impacts on infrastructure and roads. This is an exact point of how that happens …. This is exactly what has happened over the last 20 years with regard to those unincorporated pieces where you have someone and they put lipstick on a pig and make it look like oh, there are people walking around the warehouse, when we all know that that’s not entirely what’s going to happen. And it’s fragmented and piecemeal. So there’s not an overarching view for elected officials to understand what’s really happening. It’s presented to us, just like Ms. Madden said, by someone reading something with a palatable voice and powerful tone, and it’s very businesslike and has no emotion involved in it.”
McCarley said the result will be that in 25 or 30 years, what should have been the Innovation District will instead be lousy with warehouses, Polk’s average median income will continue to be poor and leaders won’t be able to attract the high-skills, high-wage jobs they want in the Lakeland area.
County Commissioner George Lindsey said he was aware of the plans for the property.
“There’s a fine line between what you prefer and what you can impose,” Lindsey said, adding that the proposed property owners made concessions to the city. “I’d like to see the spirit of the agreement held to as closely as possible, balancing the interests of property owners and the entitlements they already have.”
Sean Mallot, the director of the Central Florida Innovation District, said Lakeland and Auburndale are working within their code and with developers to minimize “cross-dock buildings,” which are a magnet for warehouse users.
“The Central Florida Innovation District is a long-term vision. We are optimistic that over time the area will see a variety of building types constructed and a mix of uses,” Mallot said. “The types of buildings proposed by the developer in Auburndale could also attract advanced manufacturing and other technology-oriented companies.”
Florida Polytechnic University spokeswoman Lydia Guzman said they are aware of the plans for the warehouse.
“It’s not ideal within the Innovation District and we would like to see that land going towards some other kind of development, rather than industrial,” Guzman said.
Auburndale City Manager Jeff Tillman declined to comment.
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