Camp Lake Industrial Park — Hills of Minneola

The case file

Camp Lake Industrial Park sits inside the Hills of Minneola PUD, on Turkey Farm Road off Citrus Grove Road, north of Florida's Turnpike. The industrial / research-park designation is not new entitlement — it traces to the original Hills of Minneola PUD approved in 2006 and amended in 2019. What the corpus records is the activation of that long-dormant designation, instrument by instrument:

• December 2, 2024 — Phase 1 site plan. Two light-industrial buildings (warehousing, distribution, small bays). The PUD allows 75-foot maximum height; the developer anticipated ~40 feet. Three total phases planned. Approved 4-0 with conditions (staff comments addressed, Kevin Carey comments addressed, updated traffic study). Tara Tedrow of Lowndes Law represented the developer.
• October 6, 2025 — Resolution 2025-25 (Camp Lake Industrial Variances). Three variances to the land development code for an industrial / research-park building: (1) blank-wall areas exceeding code limits, (2) removal of the parapet from the roof edge facing the Turnpike, (3) TPO membrane roofing in place of the required metal or tile. Applicant Kevin Castillo (owner/developer); staff recommendation by Eric Raasch of Inspire Placemaking Collective. Approved 4-0.
• May 4, 2026 — preliminary subdivision plat. A Camp Lake Industrial Park preliminary subdivision plat surfaced on the P&Z agenda at the Citrus Grove Road / N. Hancock corner, north of Citrus Grove and west of N. Hancock.

The variance trade and the road

The defining move in this entity's record is the October 2025 variance-for-infrastructure exchange. In return for the three aesthetic concessions on a building visible from the Turnpike, the developer committed to upgrading Turkey Farm Road to a three-lane parkway. The traffic study did not warrant a new signal at Citrus Grove Road / North Hancock Road, but the developer expressed willingness to collaborate on future traffic solutions.

The Commission's discussion is the tell. Kevin Carey — the unpaid citizen-engineer who performs review at a depth the two-planner staff cannot afford to hire — raised traffic flow for industrial discharge times, a cul-de-sac's purpose, vegetation growth timeline, and building visibility from the Turnpike. Commissioners weighed truck-traffic impacts, site topography alteration, lake and vegetation impacts, and suggested green roofs or undulating roof designs for better aesthetics. Commissioner Trujillo had already, at the December 2024 site-plan hearing, suggested Disney-style undulating rooflines and camouflage design to soften the industrial massing — and Tedrow committed to take it to the design team. The aesthetic-conditioning instinct that defines Minneola's "shape-don't-deny" posture is fully present even on an industrial building.

The employment counterweight

In a city dominated by residential growth — Sugarloaf Mountain (2,555 units), Del Webb (846 units), Citrus Grove (1,000+ units), Pointe Grande (Live Local) — Camp Lake is the employment and tax-base counterweight. The Minneola synthesis frames it as the activation of an industrial / research-park zone first approved in 2006: the city's first deliberate move beyond bedroom-community status. Early tenant signals — Sardo Bus & Coach (cited at ~100 jobs in the corpus) and Carla's Sweets bakery/warehouse — point at economic diversification rather than pure logistics.

The corridor anchor

Camp Lake is one of three projects clustering at the Citrus Grove Road / N. Hancock corner, the eastern Minneola gateway off the Turnpike-fed Hancock alignment:

• the existing Citrus Grove residential PUD (south side)
• the Citrus Ridge Commercial PUD (~17.878 acres, advancing to City Council after the May 4, 2026 substantive vote)
• Camp Lake Industrial Park (this entity — preliminary subdivision plat on the same May 4 agenda)

Residential next to commercial next to industrial, all entitling at the same intersection inside twelve months. This is a corridor-formation event captured in the meeting record before residents start using the corridor's name. The same legal-representation network — Tara Tedrow of Lowndes Drosdick — appears at both Camp Lake Phase 1 and the Citrus Ridge return, which is itself a forward indicator of where the next applications land. The industrial anchor advances regardless of how the Rose-McCoy faction question resolves on the commercial PUD; industrial entitlement at the same intersection is the structural feature of the next 12 to 36 months.

Why the entity matters for the corpus

Camp Lake is the industrial leg of the Hills of Minneola buildout and the cleanest evidence that Minneola is converting from a residential-only growth profile toward a mixed employment base. Two open questions sit on the entity. First, the wastewater tail: Camp Lake's new connection load compounds with the Citrus Ridge Commercial PUD and Whispering Winds at one geographic node, against the 1.0 MGD plant ceiling the watch dossier tracks. Second, the parcel-identity question: the corpus flags whether the May 2026 preliminary subdivision plat is the subdivision-plat advance of the December 2024 Phase 1 site plan or a distinct parcel — geometry that sets the operating envelope for any subsequent warehouse-and-distribution tenant.

The wider real-estate record names the development Camp Lake Commerce Center — a 163-acre, three-phase, roughly 1.4-million-sq-ft logistics park developed by FRP Development Corp. and Strategic Real Estate Partners, sited east of Florida's Turnpike and north of Citrus Grove Road, billed as the first logistics project in Minneola with direct Turnpike and US-27 access. Phase 1 — two warehouse buildings totaling ~378,000 sq ft, 32-foot clear heights — broke ground in March 2026 with delivery targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026. The corpus's case-file name (Camp Lake Industrial Park) and the market name (Camp Lake Commerce Center) describe the same project at the same Turkey Farm Road / Citrus Grove address; the corpus tracks the entitlement instruments, the market record tracks the construction.