Wetherington builds Ranch office building

March 5, 2007

By STEPHEN FRATER
stephen.frater@heraldtribune.com

LAKEWOOD RANCH -- Lee Wetherington Cos., in equal partnership with Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, has built the third major commercial office building to open in the big county-straddling development in less than a year.

In June, Wetherington's competitor, home builder John Cannon Homes, built an $8 million, three-story, 50,000-square-foot corporate headquarters. Later that month, Wetherington's partner, SMR, unveiled its own 32,000-square-foot, two-story headquarters.

But Lee Wetherington Cos. was among the first businesses, and the first builder, to build a headquarters in Lakewood Ranch, starting construction in 1999 and moving into a 10,000-square-foot operation in May 2000.

Wetherington subsequently added storage space to the existing building and has now built the new single-story, 30,000-square-foot building across the street at 6985 Professional Parkway in a joint venture with SMR.

The building was designed by Sarasota-based architect George Palermo.

Lee Wetherington, the company's president and namesake, said the five-acre site and building together cost about $4 million.

The main corporate office of Lee Wetherington Cos. remains at 6009 Business Blvd., but the two buildings together constitute headquarters for the whole company.

In the new site, Wetherington occupies about 7,500 square feet, of which the Wetherington Design Center takes up 5,000 square feet and LeeSure Water Pools has about 2,500 square feet.

Wetherington needed the space to move the more directly customer-related portions of the business -- Wetherington Design and LeeSure -- and to increase the square footage available for display areas.

When a client buys a house from Wetherington Homes, they can access the Wetherington Design Center for professional help from LWC's own American Society of Interior Design-certified designers.

If they want upgrades, additional custom finishes or materials, the costs can be rolled right into the home's financing package.

LeeSure now provides services to homeowners in Sarasota and Manatee counties, not just those building with the custom home builder, Wetherington said.

"From the time we created LeeSure Water Pools in 2000, we had always planned to provide pool design and construction services to the general public, but until now we have only been able to accommodate our own home buyers," Wetherington said. "Now that LeeSure Water Pools has moved into larger quarters in our new building, it has room to grow."

Space remaining for other tenants besides LWC totals about 22,500 square feet.

Non-Wetherington tenants in the building include Huntington Learning Center, Danka Office Imaging and Frontier Excavation.

As residential growth east of Interstate 75 continues to mushroom, SMR has been very successful in luring other well-known local companies -- Cannon, Gevity HR Inc., FCCI Insurance, Neal Communities and Fawley-Bryant Architects -- into Corporate Park in Lakewood Ranch.

Schroeder-Manatee's 28,000-acre property straddles Manatee and Sarasota counties and includes 1,500 acres of citrus groves and 3,500 acres for vegetable farming as well as the 5,500-acre, master-planned community and corporate park that most residents of the region are familiar with.

Wetherington built its own office building. But unlike local competitors John Cannon Homes and Manatee County-based Bruce Williams Homes, which recently announced their entrance into commercial construction, Lee Wetherington says his new building does not herald a new line of commercial office ventures for his company.

Wetherington plans to continue focusing on what he is known for: award-winning custom luxury homes.