Lindell Properties LLC is shifting its focus to its newest project -- Westshore's Independence Park -- as its wraps up other developments in Hillsborough and Pasco counties.

"There has been nothing this nice in Tampa yet," Lindell Properties CEO Ron Weisser said of the 44-acre, mixed-use, urban infill project that will feature brick streets, stately fountains and art-themed parks.
Construction will begin this summer on infrastructure, including sewer, water, drainage and sculpted gardens. Vertical construction should start toward the end of the year.

The Tampa-based development company is nearing completion on two longtime projects -- the 680-acre Wilderness Lake Preserve development in central Pasco and Tampa's 20-story upscale Plaza at Harbour Island.

With roughly 95 percent of the 950 homes sold at Wilderness Lake, commercial space is now being built. Wilderness Lake Commons is a $15 million, 60,000-square-foot retail center on U.S. 41.

At Plaza at Harbour Island, about 80 percent of the units in the 20-story tower have been sold and residents are moving in. Lindell Properties partnered with Houston-based Patrinely Group LLC on the tower, where the highest priced condos sold for $4 million.
Lindell also is partnering with Patrinely Group on the redevelopment of Miami's shuttered Saxony hotel as an upscale hotel/condominium project on South Beach. But plans for a $60 million luxury, waterfront condominium project in Apollo Beach have been put on hold until the flagging residential market rebounds.
Tampa's Independence Park is slated as a $500 million project at build-out, estimated to take five to six years, Weisser said.

Weisser and partner, Carl Lindell Jr., who owned car dealerships for decades prior to becoming a developer, bought the site, which is the former JPMorgan campus, for $23 million in 2005. It's on Memorial Highway, across from the Rocky Point Golf Course.
Independence Park will include 250,000 square feet of office space, 30,000 square feet of retail, a 120-room hotel and 918 mid-rise condominiums. Some residential units will be built over retail on Market Street.
Residents will be able to walk to work, stores, restaurants and parks.

"They have urban communities like this in San Diego, Boca Raton and other cities," Weisser said. "This is the first in Tampa."
Said Lindell: "Urban mixed-use communities like this are the future."

He cited rising gas prices, road congestion, workers wanting more control of their time and a need to lessen environmental impact as reasons why professionals are choosing to live near where they work.
Lindell Properties will work with partners on some parts and possibly sell other sites for development, Weisser said. The company hasn't yet decided on a particular hotel group.
Construction will start late this year on the residential component.

Far from Florida
Not all of Weisser and Lindell's newer projects involve urban living.

High Aspen Ranch is as far removed from city life as one can get.

Weisser came up with the idea of 35 acres-and-up ranch sites in Colorado after he and his wife started looking for a home near the ski slopes about five years ago.

"We wanted to find the ultimate property," Debra Weisser said.
There was plenty of land available, but most of it was far from the slopes, shopping or airports. After looking for two and a half years, they found 1,100 acres in the Elk Mountain Range near Aspen.
On that development, they ended up partnering with Lindell and longtime friend and U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan. The Weissers were traveling with Buchanan when they mentioned the Colorado land they were buying. He insisted on being a partner on the deal, Debra Weisser said.

Lindell, Weisser and Buchanan, who have been friends for many years, have partnered on other projects, Weisser said. They met years earlier as members of the Young Presidents' Organization in Tampa.

Last year, the Weissers built a log home on about 175 acres and divvied up the remaining acreage into 28 ranch sites, starting in the $900,000s. All but five have been sold.

Several have been sold to Tampa area buyers, including Rob Elder of Jaguar of Tampa, engineer Tonja Stewart and Lydia Tymiak, an eye surgeon.