Wellen Park

Wellen Park sits on land that spent most of the twentieth century as cattle country — the vast Taylor Ranch southeast of Venice, later known as Thomas Ranch. The modern story began in 2002, when roughly 8,000 acres were annexed into the City of North Port at the landowners' request and sold to developers with master-plan ambitions; the recession stalled everything before much was built. The decisive turn came in May 2014, when a partnership including Mattamy Homes — North America's largest privately held homebuilder — invested about $100 million to acquire roughly 9,600 acres of the old ranch and relaunched the project as the West Villages.

Growth from there was extraordinary. The West Villages repeatedly ranked among the best-selling master-planned communities in the United States in industry tallies, and in 2019 the community landed its signature public draw: CoolToday Park, the spring-training home of the Atlanta Braves. In April 2020 the developer rebranded the entire master plan as Wellen Park, a name meant to unify the original villages with thousands of acres still to come. Downtown Wellen — the community's 175-acre lakefront town center with restaurants, shops, a food-truck lawn, splash pad, and an 80-acre lake with kayak and bike rentals — opened in phases beginning in 2022 and has become the social anchor for the whole area.

Today Wellen Park spans a roster of villages in various stages of build-out — IslandWalk, Gran Paradiso, Renaissance, Sunstone, Lakespur, the 55+ Brightmore, and more — most of it inside North Port city limits but carrying Venice mailing addresses, a quirk that confuses nearly every newcomer. Sarasota County Schools is building into the growth, with Wellen Park High School slated to open in August 2026 and a K-8 campus planned behind it. With thousands of acres still undeveloped, Wellen Park will be adding villages, retail, and infrastructure for years to come.