Anthony Mazzucca calls his planned 27-acre Washington Crossing development, on U.S. 301 and Tallevast Road, "a tech magnet."

"We see Washington Crossing as a high-end office, industrial and mixed-use site," says Mazzucca, president of the Blackpoint Group of St. Petersburg, Fla., and New Jersey.

Mazzucca envisions 17 to 25 hydraulic, electronic, injection molding and other technical businesses locating at Washington Crossing, each occupying about 5,000 to 10,000 square feet in six light industrial buildings. The property also will have office condos and a retail strip near the corner with a bank, hotel and other businesses. The still-unnamed hotel will feature living suites and cater to businesspeople in the mostly industrial area.

Washington Crossing will have fiber-optic cable, Wi-Fi hotspots, back-up power and energy management systems, and Mazzucca says green technologies will be incorporated into the building process to reduce operating costs. Leasing rates for office space will range about $18 to $20 triple net. Commercial condominiums will sell for about $140 a square foot for a shell and about $190 a square foot for office space.

Mazzucca purchased the land last summer for $4.7 million. Site approval is in the final stages, and he hopes to break ground this fall on a 27,000-square-foot spec building, but he says that negotiations with an interested party may take it off the market before it is finished. Completion of the project is expected in about two years.

Adjoining Mazzucca's land on a frontage road are a glass company, a heating and air-conditioning company and others serving the building industry. Mazzucca says the high-tech buildings he has in mind will bring a different type of business. The company built a similar, but smaller, 57,000-square-foot commercial development at Portal Crossing West in Commerce Park at Lakewood Ranch. It is also planning the Fowler Crossing Business Park near I-75 in Tampa.

The three corners on the heavily traveled U.S. 301-Tallevast corridor are now vacant, brush-filled land, with Ring Power Caterpillar occupying a relatively new building on the fourth corner, but two other commercial developments along with Washington Crossing will bring more than 300,000 square feet of industrial, warehouse and office space to the Sarasota-Manatee area.

Across the street from Mazzucca's 27 acres, where dozens of cows are grazing, Jon Swift Construction plans a 150,000-square-foot storage facility. On the northwest corner, Trey Dusenberg's Covered Bridge Holdings is planning The Forum, a 37,000 square-foot office and warehouse complex.

"Over the next five years we'll see a transformation of the 301 corridor," predicts Mazzucca. The Washington Crossing property is within a few miles of Sarasota Bradenton International Airport, the University of South Florida and New College of Florida, and it's close to I-75 and ports in Manatee and Tampa. "We hope to work closely with University of South Florida to see if we can provide spaces for people who want to partner with the college," Mazzucca says.

The space is sorely needed, says Nancy Engel, executive director of the Manatee Economic Development Council. "A lot of our technology companies are in the growth mode," says Engel. "Companies on both sides [of the Sarasota-Manatee border] want to keep their labor force here."

The nearby Tallevast residential neighborhood has been dealing with contaminated ground from the former American Beryllium site nearby, but Mazzucca says that does not affect his property.

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK

Besides Washington Crossing, U.S. 301 and Tallevast Road will include Jon Swift Construction's new 150,000-square-foot storage facility and Trey Desenberg's The Forum, a 37,000-square-foot office and warehouse project.