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Every study. Every approval. Best offer wins.

9.1 Acres  |  Qualified Opportunity Zone  |  Lakeland, Florida

First things first: the approved PUD site plan. 96 multifamily units, qualified and approved. This is what you're buying. Every image in this portal expands when tapped, and you're welcome to print any plan or rendering.

This is a data room, not a pitch. A 9.1 acre, PUD approved, triple designated site in Lakeland, every study complete and shown below, two written LOIs above $4M in the file, and an owner who has decided to sell. I'm not naming a price. I'm into it $1.63 million over five years, I'm looking for the best offer, and I need to move quickly: decisions by September 21. Everything you need to underwrite it is on this page.

First, in plain language · What is an Opportunity Zone?

Explained like you're eight: an Opportunity Zone isn't something you earn or apply for. Either your land has it, or it doesn't, the federal government drew the map in 2018 and it hasn't been redrawn since. Only a small fraction of America's census tracts ever received the designation, and this property carries not one but three federal designations we never applied for: a Qualified Opportunity Zone (place an eligible capital gain here and the tax treatment changes dramatically), a Qualified Census Tract (unlocks affordable and workforce housing advantages), and a Targeted Employment Area (opens additional investment programs). Three designations, one site, by luck of the map. That is genuinely rare.

If you're holding a large capital gain, this is why you're here. And if you're not, and you simply want a strong real estate investment, keep reading anyway, the story and the facts stand on their own.

Four buyer pools, one parcel

The designations do the selling. Qualified Census Tract: unlocks affordable housing tax credit advantages, which is exactly why New Star and Blue Sky wrote LOIs above $4 million for this ground; hold it, hand it to them, close in about a year. EB-5 Targeted Employment Area: opens international investment capital at reduced thresholds, a channel most parcels never have. Qualified Opportunity Zone: designated 2018, valid through 2028, for buyers holding eligible gains. Land banking: even if you never pour a foundation, this ground sits a mile and a half from downtown Lakeland, a half mile from Bonnet Springs Park, voted the number one city park in America, two miles from Florida Southern College, home of the largest single site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the world, and under two miles from Southeastern University. Buy it, hold it, and let the city grow to it. Four separate pools of buyers exist for this land, and every one of them can verify the designations and the distances themselves.

1 · What is this property?

The offering: the 9.1 acre parcel, outlined. Tap to enlarge.

The ground itself: raw land, cleared of guesswork, every study below already run on it.

Download the One Page Data Room Summary Download the Investor Brief · Version 1.05 · PDF Request Documents · Schedule a Call

2 · Why this opportunity

• Qualified Opportunity Zone, deploy against a known 2018 designation
• PUD approval in hand, entitlement feasibility already demonstrated
• Significant entitlement work completed
• Utility coordination completed, exact tie-in points identified
• Engineering completed · Environmental completed, Phase I and II, the site is clean
• Existing consultant team familiar with the project, available to the buyer
• Owner available to assist through the transition

3 · What's already been done

Ten of twelve boxes checked before you arrive. Only the development order and building permits remain, and both paths are timed below.

4 · Proof of Opportunity Zone

The site sits in a census tract designated as a Qualified Opportunity Zone in 2018; designations currently run through December 31, 2028, with the next round effective January 1, 2027. Don't take our word for it, verify it yourself in two minutes: go to HUD's official Opportunity Zones page, open the map, and type in 1506 N. Olive St., Lakeland, Florida. You'll see it: approved, designated, qualified. The independent OZ map shows the same. Parcel ID and census tract come with the buyer package.

The Opportunity Zone map, the site inside the designated tract. Tap to enlarge, then verify it yourself at the HUD link above.

And one more layer of certainty: my tax attorney is an Opportunity Zone specialist and is available to answer any OZ question your group has, structure, timing, deployment deadlines, all of it, in conversation.

5 · PUD approved · 96 units, and the path to more

The site holds PUD approval for 96 multifamily units today. Want more? The City of Lakeland's own correspondence documents the path to up to 108 units through the defined modification process, estimated 4 to 6 months, shown in the department's email below, not our characterization. And a word on why we planned a modification at all: reworking the conceptual plan brings construction cost down dramatically, which is exactly why we didn't build garden apartments, the numbers told us not to.

6 · My vision, yours if you want it

You don't have to build my vision, it's already approved for yours. But here is what I drew for this ground, five years of it, and all of it conveys: Usonian inspired homes and some duplexes. The full archive, over 30 conceptual plans, lives at oaksonolive.com/history.

I come from architecture and construction. The second path: about the same count of smaller residences, built on Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian principles. Two bed twos and one bed ones.

Priced to sell below the local cost of renting. Or hold them all at market rents. Either exit models strong profitability. The trade bids are already in hand.

From my own modeling, plainly: a conventional apartment complex at this density is hard to make work without affordable housing subsidy, unless Opportunity Zone treatment changes your math.

This vision is an illustration, never a requirement. For the right group, it could also become a partnership instead of a sale. The modeling is shared in conversation. Allow roughly 4 to 6 months for the major modification if you pursue it.

The conceptual site plan for the alternative concept. It conveys, along with over 30 more plans, at oaksonolive.com/history. Tap to enlarge.

7 · Due diligence · complete, and shown

Plain-language explanations, the same standard we hold everywhere: you should never nod at a document you don't understand. Tap any image to see it full size.

The full library conveys under NDA or during the diligence period following an acceptable purchase agreement:

8 · Location · Lakeland, between Tampa and Orlando

The site · see the route from the site to Bonnet Springs Park on Google Maps

Lakeland sits on the I-4 corridor, roughly an hour to Tampa and an hour to Orlando.

Bonnet Springs Park, voted the #1 city park in America, USA Today 10Best Readers' Choice 2025, minutes from the site.

Florida Southern College, two miles away: the largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the world, the campus Wright planned as his "College of Tomorrow."

Minutes to Downtown Lakeland. Convenient to I-4 via the Polk Parkway, Lakeland Regional Health, and Lakeland Linder Airport.

9 · Where it stands · Your two timelines

The development order is the shortest path. The PUD is approved. A buyer who moves forward with the same conceptual plan the city already approved does not start over. The approval carries, and the next step is simply the development order and building permits.

A Century in the Making

From a 1925 plat to a plan the city helped shape.

Inspired by the past. Built for the future.

This land was platted in April 1925 as part of Lakeland's original Westgate community, and it has sat essentially untouched for a hundred years. Since then we've drawn more than 30 conceptual plans for this property and spent years working side by side with the City of Lakeland to get it right. What survives all that iteration is worth reserving.

The world's most admired communities weren't created by accident. They were designed with intention. Every historic building. Every timeless neighborhood. Every unforgettable space. Each one started with someone willing to think differently. We're applying those same principles to a new generation of attainable homes in Lakeland.

1925

The Original Plat

Westgate, Lakeland, Florida. Platted in April 1925 and recorded in Polk County. The bones of the neighborhood are a century old.

Today

The Land, Untouched

Roughly 9 acres inside the city, mature oaks standing, waiting a hundred years for the right idea.

30+

Conceptual Plans

An example concept only. We're still going back and forth with the City of Lakeland, and every version taught us something the next one kept. Tap the plan to see it full size.

Organic Architecture

Meet the namesake. We build around these trees, not through them.

This is a live, mature southern oak standing on the Olive Street property right now. We call it the magic tree. It is over 125 years old, and it is one of eleven mature oaks on this land. These are our photographs from the site, not images off the internet. The community is named for these trees. They were here before any of us and the plan is for them to outlast all of us.

The magic tree · A live southern oak on the site, over 125 years old, one of eleven · Our photographs, from our land

Our goal is to keep every mature tree on the property. Where a residence meets a tree, the residence adapts: pier and beam foundations lift the structure over the root systems so the oaks keep breathing. That's organic architecture the way Wright meant it, building as a grace to the landscape, not a disgrace to it.

Building around the tree, literally · Design reference, Gene Leedy era · This is exactly what I'm thinking

And we made the call the trees demanded: no two story structures anywhere in the community. Every compound is single story, so the canopy stays the tallest thing on the land. Ninety nine compounds under hundred year old shade, from day one. You can't plant that. You can only protect it.

Organic roads. Mother nature already solved drainage.

The streets here are planned as organic roads: permeable surfaces, stone edges, grass pavers that drink the rain instead of shedding it into pipes. No curbs. Grass never holds a puddle for five days. Roads do, because they don't drain. Ours will.

Potential materials shown. Nothing is final. These are the kinds of surfaces we're testing with our engineers.

10 · The developer · The whole story

Whether you buy this site or partner on this ground, you're dealing with a person, not a pitch deck. So here's the whole story, the same one I tell every buyer.

From War Veteran to Real Estate Developer.

U.S. Army · Operation Iraqi Freedom & Operation Enduring Freedom · TEDx Lakeland Speaker

This project started with a drive. February 23, 2021. I passed a for sale sign on a piece of land, and something in me would not let it go. The real beginning, though, was decades earlier.

Before any of that, there was just me and my mom. I didn't meet my biological father until I was nineteen. For most of my childhood it was the two of us, and we came from the Jacob Riis projects in New York City. Where I'm from, owning a home isn't a dream people talk about. It isn't even a thought.

My mom brought us to Florida when I was about six, maybe seven. She met an amazing man named Eli Cruz. They dated, they fell in love, and they got married.

Not long after the wedding, the man I call my dad picked me up, set me on the table, and asked if he could adopt me. I asked what that meant. He said my name would be Cruz. I thought it over the way a kid thinks over anything important: Cruz starts with C, Padilla starts with P, and the chocolate milk line went in alphabetical order. So I said of course. Front of the line. That was the whole ceremony, and it was perfect. Franklin Padilla became Franklin Andrew Cruz.

My mother, Nancy Cruz, and me. For most of my childhood it was just us.

Then my dad showed her something she thought was impossible: a home of our own, as a family. Coming from the projects, that was everything.

The home she never imagined she could own.

My mom would not stop talking about that home. We had friends over. We had movie nights. I remember watching La Bamba with my uncles. People would come over and stay for hours. My mom cut hair at home. Everything happened at home. She loved it. We were happy.

When I was ten, my mom was pregnant with my little brother Jordan. That weekend we won our baseball tournament. I was the star player. I turned a triple play in front of her. I stayed the night at my friend Bubba's house, and the next morning the call came: come see your brother be born. When I got there, everybody was crying, and I kept thinking something had happened to my brother. Then my dad came to me and said the words I have carried ever since. Your mom just died.

Jordan lived. She didn't. I was ten years old. I never got to say goodbye, and I never got to hear her say she was proud of me. I knew she loved me. Her letters told me that. And since that day I have known one thing for certain: nobody is promised tomorrow.

What stayed with me through everything since is how happy she was in that home. It wasn't a big home. It wasn't fancy. It was hers. That is what a home is supposed to do. A home is not supposed to be stress, or tension, or a bill you're afraid to open. A home is supposed to be safety, privacy, peace, and your own land under your feet.

So when the Army taught me discipline and real estate taught me the business, one question drove all of it: how do I build that feeling for people like my mom? I could easily rent all ninety nine of these out and never sell one. Never. Not my heart. These homes are for owning.

Nancy Cruz. My mother. My first why.

I'm Franklin Andrew Cruz. U.S. Army war veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, and a real estate developer with a passion for architecture: Frank Lloyd Wright's organic principles, Gene Leedy's indoor outdoor living, and Mies van der Rohe's less is more. I happen to live in Lakeland. The mission goes further. I've run my own crews for years and built everything from a Habitat home to a 41 home community, and much more. If you want the full story, it's at franklinandrewcruz.com. When you join this community, you're not dealing with a sales office. You're dealing directly with me, developer to buyer, start to finish, together with a team I chose to make sure your experience is amazing.

The part most people don't know.

I was a big Back to the Future kid. After I built Cruz Court and sold it to KB Home, every national home builder bid on that property, and I talked to all of them. What I learned changed my life: we are never getting the homes of the future. Not one of those builders had any plan for style, for a Frank Lloyd Wright, a Mies van der Rohe, a Gene Leedy. Not one. Ever.

The kid in me wanted the future. · Two miles from our site, the banner says it: the largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the world.

Elon Musk saw the same thing about space. He knew we were never going back to the moon or on to the stars the way things were going, and instead of complaining he did something about it. I decided to do the same thing with homes. So I started learning. And the first time I stood in front of a Frank Lloyd Wright home, it blew me away. A house built in the 1920s looked like it could have been built yesterday. That's when I understood that great architecture doesn't age, and great architecture can actually inspire you to be a better person.

I've been part of 30 plus developments and hundreds of real estate transactions. I went through a divorce after a 15 year marriage, and I raised two boys who are young men now, 17 and 24. At this stage of my life I want to give back. Modern homes for ordinary people, built on Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian principles, something that inspires the people who live in them. That's what my mother's joy taught me a home could be. Oaks on Olive is how I keep that promise.

A hands on developer. Every screw, every trade.

This is me with the guys during the butterfly roof build. I like being outside, on site, in the middle of it. We built the Habitat house in four months with me and four guys: sheathing, roof trusses, roofing, framing, drywall, flooring, the kitchen. I bought every material and called in every inspection myself. I want to know every detail, so I don't miss one. That's who is building your residence.

Built, not promised · Look at what's already standing

Don't take my word for anything. Every one of these is standing in Lakeland right now. Click any map link, drive by, walk the street.

Get to know me, anywhere you like

Trust isn't built on one webpage. Follow along wherever you already are, watch how I work, and decide for yourself.

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Why I'm selling: this property represents several years of planning, engineering, entitlement work, environmental studies, utility coordination, and development preparation. While my long-term vision remains to develop the site, I am also open to selling to the right buyer who recognizes the value of acquiring a project with much of the upfront risk already addressed. Ask me anything about that directly, I'll tell you straight.

And if you want to see every plan this land has ever worn, 101 years, 47 concepts, from the 1925 plat to today: read the full history.

Make your offer

You've seen everything: the entitlement, the studies, the designations, the letters, the history. If this ground fits your plan, shoot me an email with your offer and your timeline. Want to talk through the LOIs, or about me staying on as a consultant through your build? Separate conversation, happily had. Decisions by September 21.