ST. LUCIE WEST
Realty in St. Lucie West, the local arm of the Missouri-based
White Company.
As White was planning St. Lucie West in the 1980s,
Wingfield’s family, under the name of Callaway Land &
Cattle Co., was developing another massive project, the
2,300-acre development called The Reserve, now known as
PGA Village and owned by Kolter Communities, on the west
side of I-95. PGA Village is adjacent to the western boundary
of St. Lucie West.
“I think my father and Tom were a little bit ahead of their
time, but I think things turned out pretty much exactly as
our fathers had hoped for,” Wingfield said.
Thomas J. White Sr. passed away in 1989, his son said,
but had arranged with Callaway to become the first two
privately owned firms in the state to jointly build an
Interstate 95 interchange. It is located right between the
two developments.
“St. Lucie West today, in my mind, is a self-contained community,”
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Wingfield said. “We have sports, entertainment,
hotels, doctors, a great soccer field in McChesney Park, two
colleges, a light industrial park. County government has a
building out here and we’re getting more restaurants.”
St. Lucie West also has its own water and sewer utility
called the St. Lucie West Services District.
Tom White Jr. said he kept his hand in the development of
St. Lucie West, developing several commercial properties,
including Clock Tower Plaza, the Coldwell Banker building,
and Westbrook Plaza as well as some others.
Crosstown Parkway, which marks the southern border of
St. Lucie West, will take the traffic pressure off notoriously
crowded St. Lucie West Boulevard, Wingfield said. Drivers
from east of St. Lucie West use the boulevard as a conduit
to the interstate. Crosstown’s I-95 interchange will open
in 2009.
TRAFFIC CHALLENGES
Residents, meanwhile, worry that if St. Lucie West
Boulevard ever has to be widened, its attractive appearance
would be destroyed.
“The traffic is growing like crazy,” said five-year Lake
Forest neighborhood resident Arthur Swanson who was
chatting with friends outside of Dunkin’ Donuts.
“I heard if they widen St. LucieWest Boulevard they may
take out the median. I hope they don’t,” said Raymond
Capece, who has lived in the Lake Charles neighborhood for
five years. He described the massive subdivision as, “very selfcontained.
Everything you could want, almost, is right here.”
Then he added, “But we could use a Carrabas restaurant.”
St. Lucie County Administrator Doug Anderson moved
into St. Lucie West in 1995 when there was one traffic signal,
the restaurant was McDonald’s, and traffic jams were something
that happened elsewhere. He remembers what the
As in any small town, friends often meet at the local coffee place to chat about the day’s events. At the Dunkin’ Donuts on St. Lucie West Boulevard,
Arthur Swanson from Lake Forest Point neighborhood, with dog Teddy, chats with Randall Placko from Magnolia Lakes, Raymond Capece from Lake
Charles, Nancy Dowd from Port St. Lucie, and Marvin Fleishman from The Cascades.
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