Bella Tara has its second builder

Jones Homes joins Toll at Bella Tara

Bella Tara now has two builders. Jones Homes USA paid $14.77 million on Nov. 2 for 153 lots in the community’s first phase, Laura Kinsler reported in GrowthSpotter. That follows Toll Brothers, which paid $7.56 million for 58 lots there in October. Between the two deals, that’s $22.33 million for 211 lots.

If you haven’t been out there, Bella Tara sits south of Kissimmee Park Road in Osceola’s East of Lake Toho district and runs 664 acres down to the shore of Lake Tohopekaliga. Crossprairie is on one side. Metro Development Group’s Tranquility, the Crystal Lagoon community whose approval led Vol. 22, is on the other, separated by Tohopekaliga Road and the Whaleys Landing boat ramp at its end. The developer, Centerline Capital, is approved for 2,000 homes in five phases with two neighborhood centers.

Toll opens sales in early December. Kinsler reports six floor plans on 50-foot lots, up to 3,600-plus square feet with three to six bedrooms, and quick move-in homes already under construction from the mid-$500,000s. Jones bought a mix of townhomes, bungalows and detached homes, all in Phase 1, and has only about six homes left at its current Crossprairie community, per the same report.

This next part is my math, not GrowthSpotter’s. Jones paid roughly $96,500 a lot. Toll paid roughly $130,300. Don’t read that gap as Toll overpaying. Jones’s purchase includes townhome and bungalow sites, and Toll’s lots are 50-foot single-family lots, so the two numbers measure different things. What the deals do tell you is that two builders put more than $22 million into the lake side of the county about a month apart.

Toll’s Central Florida division president, Brock Fanning, told GrowthSpotter the Phase 1 amenity, with pickleball courts, a playground and a dog park, is almost complete. The clubhouse, pool, splash pad, fitness center and lakefront dock are planned for later phases. He also pointed to a new Turnpike interchange opening in 2029. He didn’t say which one, and it doesn’t match the dates I’ve reported: Vol. 28 had Nolte Road in late 2027 and Waterlin Boulevard as soon as the end of 2028. Treat 2029 as his number, not mine.

Who this is for: buyers shopping new construction in the $500,000s who want to be near the lake and can wait on amenities. Who it isn’t for: anyone who needs the pool and clubhouse the day they move in. Those are future-phase plans, and future phases are where timelines slip.

St. Cloud’s fee study prices the permit counter

St. Cloud spends more reviewing permits and zoning applications than it collects for them. That’s the finding of a fee study the city ordered in October 2024 from Raftelis, a local government consultant, Stephanie Rodriguez reported Nov. 11 for WKMG News 6. Community development spending roughly doubled, from about $1.32 million in fiscal 2022 to about $2.6 million in fiscal 2025, while fee revenue went from $782,000 to just over $1 million. Taxpayers have been covering the gap.

Most of the proposed increases land on developers and commercial builders. Some land on homeowners. A residential fence application would go from $112 to $160. An above-ground pool, free today, would carry a $160 fee. A commercial fence permit would go from $120 to $220, and temporary and directional sign requests from $110 to $230. The study says the new schedule would bring St. Cloud in line with Kissimmee and Osceola County.

The study ties its timing to Amendment 3. In WKMG’s reporting, Florida TaxWatch estimates St. Cloud loses about $9.17 million in property tax revenue in 2027-28, rising to about $25.3 million by 2031-32, roughly $94 million over five years. Vol. 34 printed the city’s own estimate of $13.73 million for 2028-29. TaxWatch’s figure for that same year is $17.37 million. Two estimates from two sources, and neither one is an adopted budget.

Council took up the study at its Nov. 11 meeting. I haven’t found a published outcome, so treat every fee above as a proposal. One more thing before you price a fence or a pool: a city fee schedule only applies inside city limits. Harmony and the Osceola side of Sunbridge sit in unincorporated Osceola County, which sets its own fees. Check which one your address falls under.

Hilliard Isle gets a town center, in 2029

On the shore of East Lake Toho in Kissimmee, Hilliard Isle is getting a town center, just not soon. Laura Kinsler reported Nov. 11 in GrowthSpotter that Plaza Lakes, the U.S. subsidiary of Puerto Rican mall developer Empresas Fonalledas, plans The Village at Hilliard Isle on Simpson Road: about 130,000 square feet of retail and dining plus two apartment communities totaling 600 units. SRS Real Estate Partners is leading retail leasing, and Sandi Bargfrede of SRS told GrowthSpotter dirt starts at the beginning of 2028 with delivery in 2029.

The homes come first. Pulte is the exclusive builder for Hilliard Isle’s 2,016 homes, with 18 floor plans starting in the high $300s, and opens sales early next year. That’s a different builder, product and price point from Toll at Bella Tara, so I wouldn’t treat the two as a straight comparison. It does mean two lakefront master plans in Osceola open sales within a few months of each other.

Bargfrede told GrowthSpotter they’re talking with large fitness users as anchors, plus a daycare, a bank, hardware and pet stores, and restaurants, and are working through letters of intent. The project is in planning and permitting, and I haven’t seen a signed tenant. She calls it “a Lake Nona-adjacent location.” The concrete link is roads. Boggy Creek Road is being widened from two lanes to four between Simpson Road and Narcoossee Road, and Simpson Road was recently widened with a new signal at Hilliard Isle’s entrance, per GrowthSpotter.

Kissimmee is outside my core coverage, and I’m flagging it as such. It’s in this issue because of the Boggy Creek widening to Narcoossee Road.

What to watch

Toll’s Bella Tara sales opening in early December, and whether base pricing lands near the quick move-in homes.

The St. Cloud council’s next step on the fee schedule. No adoption vote has been published.

AdventHealth Lake Nona, which AdventHealth’s own site still lists as opening in December 2026.

Pulte’s Hilliard Isle sales opening early next year, and the first pricing beyond “high $300s.”

I’m also watching

AdventHealth Lake Nona’s page now says the hospital will have 255 beds when complete. I recorded 295 in Vol. 32. Evidence: AdventHealth’s own website. What would confirm it: a published bed count at the December opening.

Chad