City leaders will meet to determine a path forward.
Since July 20, 2022, the City of Plant City’s project to develop Midtown has been in the hands of a developer, IDP Plant City Midtown, LLC. Among those who sent in proposals for the development, a collaboration between IDP Properties, a real estate developer based in Georgia, and Solution Source, a general contractor in Plant City, was chosen by the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) board to carry out a vision to build attractive housing and retail spaces on the 16-acre area. The plan stalled since that time.
In September 2024, at a City Commission meeting, IDP asked for an extension to the contract with Plant City to wait for interest rates to come down. At the time, Commissioner Mathis requested more frequent progress updates. Commissioner Dodson aired the idea to research for more effective ways to develop Midtown since the project hadn’t broken ground on anything for two years.
“We can’t control the market,” IDP Vice President of Development, Carter Broun, said in that meeting. “We don’t control interest rates. Insurance rates are up 30 to 40 percent. Construction costs have increased. A development has to make sense financially. Conditions have to be feasible, and right now they are not.” The developer anticipated breaking ground when interest rates came down, but they did not fall until recently, and did not fall enough.
At the November 10, 2025, City Commission meeting, Mayor Nate Kilton spoke about IDP. “Recently, we were informed by our development partner, they are pulling out from that development,” he said. “I want to publicly thank them and Solution Source for trying their best to get something done. But this was the fifth iteration of trying to go through that process of full development with different developers, so that is not going to happen at this time. But we can’t give up. We are not going to. I think it is important to keep some momentum going. I know that our team and staff are prepared to work on some recommendations, and I think it is important for us to try to do some one-on-ones and have a workshop. So, Mr. City Manager, if you can work on getting that together for us, I don’t want to let any moss grow on this. If we can try to get those one-on-ones done in December, so that we can roll into the new year being proactive on taking some next steps. I know there is a lot going on right now, but I think that we have the horsepower, and this is a top priority; we can take that next step.”
“As far as the developer’s decision to not move forward, I think it is reflective of the current reality in the market for that type of development,” City Manager Bill McDaniel commented on Wednesday. “I think that they gave it every effort possible, and it came down to a matter of, when you’re looking at the cost, the interest rates, carrying charges, and then timelines and what they thought were the fiscal realities for them, it resulted in them having to make a very difficult decision.” McDaniel will set up one-on-one briefings with city commissioners on the status of things, lay out options, get their input, and get some direction to bring that back for public discussion on how to move forward.
IDP is the same developer tasked with the Wheeler Street Station project. “Wheeler Street is still alive and well,” McDaniel commented. “It is a different scale of project. You would have to multiply Wheeler Street times 30 or 40 to be equivalent to what Midtown would be. Wheeler Street is constructing one building on a corner. Midtown, the scope of that was to build multiple buildings across 16 acres of land. You are talking multi-story, multi-use.”
“The Midtown parcel needs to be put back in the private sector, put on the tax rolls, and put to use,” Ed Verner, CEO of City Properties, commented. “That was the original plan; to clean up some brownfield areas, and amass new opportunities on that spot. I think the best outcome would be to divide it up into manageable bites and accept offers from people who want to buy those bites to build what is being encouraged there. It has been a long wait. Even though the city has done a lot of really good things in Midtown, the long duration of the wait has dispirited a lot of people. But since it has been cleaned up, put a price tag on it, tell people the kind of zoning you want it to have, and the kind of construction you want it to have, and then sell it. You might actually have local people willing to participate if it can be divided into manageable parcels. Whereas, there is nobody local who is going to take on the entirety.”
“I would like to see development of Midtown made available to those who would take a parcel of land and develop it within the scope of the original vision which the city commission conceived,” City Commissioner Bill Dodson commented. “By allowing individual parcels of land development to occur, it becomes more economically feasible for many builder/developer types to act. The results could act as a springboard for individual creativity to thrive, small shops with living quarters above and restaurants on street corners, and family activity areas set within. Families would be encouraged to come into Midtown to live, work, and play.”
The Federal Reserve had kept interest rates high to keep inflation down. Now that the Fed dropped the rates will that make Midtown attractive to a developer? “When it comes to retail outlet, name-brand franchise, large-world developers, interest rates are extremely important, because those kinds of developers almost always borrow, and use other people’s money to build what they want to build,” Verner said. “As your investor pool gets smaller in size, they become less sensitive to interest rates, because they may be building for themselves or they may be an owner/occupier and they are not trying to do complex long-term leases for real-estate investment trusts. Rather, they may want to build their 4,000 square foot office. I think most of your private investors, once you get below a certain level in size and scope, they would rather just buy the thing and build it, rather than have to deal with a committee of bankers they are trying to convince them to borrow the money to do it. Though there are exceptions.”
More news on the status and progress of developing Midtown to come in 2026.
