A Custom Off-Site Wetlands Mitigation Project

The Challenge

One of the nation’s largest shopping center developers with a major retail client in the wings was stymied in their attempts to build an otherwise highly desirable project in Pasco County, Florida. Their development parcel did not provide enough land on-site to compensate for the project’s proposed wetland impacts. Without a real-time, workable solution the project would have to be abandoned or the anchor store reduced in size to a point that did not render the project economically feasible. The developer sought South Swell’s custom mitigation solution.

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Catch-22

The retail store plans had specific development requirements including: location, store size, parking, and site access for its finished structure. However, the selected development parcel did not provide enough land on-site to compensate for the projects proposed wetland impacts. This dilemma forced the developer to search for an off-site mitigation solution for the wetland impacts or watch their potential retail store client walk away. The developer sought South Swell’s custom mitigation solution.

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Our Custom Solution

South Swell’s team of environmental professionals:

  • First, determined the type and amount of wetland community being impacted by the developer.
  • Second, South Swell acquired a privately owned property with similar although disturbed natural resource qualities within the same watershed as the retail parcel.

We then designed and performed our proven mitigation activities on the newly purchased property to compensate for the lost wetland function.

The off-site mitigation project was comprised of four mitigation types:

  • Wetland creation
  • Wetland enhancement
  • Wetland restoration
  • Upland/wetland preservation

After the construction activities were complete, South Swell placed a perpetual conservation easement over the land. The easement area includes approximately 27 acres of wetlands and a buffering upland preserve. South Swell committed to regularly occurring maintenance events to ensure mitigation success requirements of the regulating agencies.

Result

The shopping center was able to be constructed as planned including maintaining the store size of the crucial anchor tenant. The resultant ecosystem created is now a thriving protected environment. The South Swell mitigation property is now home to over 20,000 newly planted trees, shrubs, grasses and a myriad of other wildlife native to southwest Florida.