Plans for a second high school in Lakewood Ranch debated due to traffic

Commissioner Jason Bearden said there’s a lot of talk about “smart growth” among commissioners in Manatee County, but in his opinion, building a high school off Lorraine Road before finishing the recently defunded widening project on Lorraine Road is “dumb growth.” 

“We cannot continue to just approve things blindly without a plan because our job is to develop infrastructure around these projects,” Bearden said to his fellow commissioners during the Nov. 4 commission meeting. "When those kids have a head-on collision because we're not having this discussion, then that's on you." 

The construction of a high school on the southwest corner of Rangeland Parkway and Post Boulevard was already approved by a prior commission and the Manatee County School Board, so approving the site plan was placed on the meeting's agenda under “presentations upon request."

Commissioner George Kruse defined “presentations upon request” as “reserved for items that nobody in the public has commented on and nobody on the board asked significant enough questions about during briefings to warrant the assumption of a presentation.”

Not only was a presentation requested, a heated debate and three separate motions ensued. In the end, the site plan was approved in a 4-3 vote with Kruse and commissioners Mike Rahn, Amanda Ballard and Tal Siddique in favor of the measure.

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The not yet officially named “AAA High School” is set to start construction in 2026. The school will be open to freshmen and sophomores in 2027 and juniors and seniors in 2029. At full capacity, the school will serve 2,500 students.

Commissioner Bob McCann, who is the district commissioner for the Lakewood Ranch area, made the first motion to deny the site plan’s approval, but he only garnered two votes from Bearden and Commissioner Carol Felts. 

All three commissioners pointed to an area that is growing too fast for the roads to handle, and all three voted against approval. 

McCann wanted to know how much traffic the high school will contribute to the surrounding roads and how overcapacity Lakewood Ranch High School is now. 

According to the traffic study, morning dropoffs will bring 1,275 cars in and out of the school. With afterschool activities and early dismissals, that number drops to about 800 cars for afternoon pickups. 

Frank Domingo, senior project manager with Stantec, the firm that designed the site plan, noted that the dismissal time will be between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m., which is outside of peak rush hour.

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The school will have three access points from Rangeland Parkway, Post Boulevard and 59th Avenue East. While the property borders Lorraine Road, there will not be an access point from Lorraine Road. 

County and school district staff are collaborating to look ahead at how the surrounding intersections will be affected and will share the costs of improvements. 

Director of Public Works Chad Butzow said signalizing the intersection at Rangeland Parkway and Post Boulevard is already included in the county's current capital improvement plan. 

While the overall Lorraine Road project was removed from the CIP, he said the intersection at Lorraine Road and 59th Avenue East would also be signalized "near occupancy of the school." 

The intersection at Post Boulevard and 59th Avenue East is currently a four-way stop that's on the staff's "watch list."

To answer McCann's capacity question, Mike Pendley, executive planner for the school district, said Lakewood Ranch High School was over capacity by 170 students in August. That number could be higher now.

However, he pointed to the development that’s underway east of Lorraine Road as the bigger issue to be solved by a new high school. 

The district has also been put in a tough spot by Schools of Hope, legislation that allows charter schools to operate in public schools that have unused space. The district is then responsible to feed and transport those students at no cost to the charter schools.

Pendley noted that it will be more expensive to build the additional two classroom buildings later, but the project has to be phased given the current circumstances.

“It’s imperative that we don’t get ahead of ourselves,” he said. “We almost have to get into a situation where the school is over capacity before we can add on more.” 

Plans for AAA High School have been in the works for five years. 

“All we’re doing here is approving a site plan on something that’s already been approved,” Kruse said.

Commissioner Tal Siddique made a motion to defer the decision to a date uncertain, but the county’s land use attorney, Sarah Schenk, said the decision could only be delayed until Nov. 6 because of a 45-day time limit per Florida statute.

Siddique brought in a secondary issue to traffic — shared use of the school’s facilities, such as the outdoor tennis and basketball courts. 

“I don’t want to be unreasonable,” he said, “But the fact is, we just can’t keep pumping hundreds of millions into parks and facilities and other things that our residents want out there, so I think there’s a need for a partnership there, and I’d like to see that reflected here somehow.” 

McCann then asked the school board to withdraw its application so more discussions could be had first. 

Chad Choate, chair of the Manatee County School Board, said he liked Siddique's suggestion and thought an arrangement could be worked out at a later date, but the district was in “crunch time” to start building. 

He noted that most students will be accessing the school from Rangeland Parkway. And Pendley noted that the newly rezoned maps have students only traveling from the east side of Lorraine Road, so any currently enrolled students are already driving past the site on Rangeland to get to Lakewood Ranch High School. 

“I really do appreciate the thinking about safety, especially our students’ safety,” Choate said. “But I don’t believe we can delay this anymore than it’s already been delayed. It’s been sitting here for over a month now and the 45 days are almost up.” 

Rahn made the final motion that ultimately approved the site plan.