Tradition, Port St. Lucie

Tradition is not a separate town: it is an 8,200 acre region inside the City of Port St. Lucie, west of I-95, that the city says is known to the public and marketed as Tradition.

The city's Southern Grove fact sheet uses that 8,200 acre figure and treats Tradition as the umbrella name for several planned districts, including the Southern Grove and Western Grove developments of regional impact (City of Port St. Lucie Southern Grove fact sheet). The city growth page directs questions about development to the 1PSL customer service system or 772-871-1775 (City of Port St. Lucie growth and development page).

A Tradition Town Hall Meeting was held on April 18, 2023 to inform residents about current and future development in the Tradition community, and the city keeps a copy of the presentation on the same growth page.

No: the City of Port St. Lucie lists Tradition, Southern Grove, Western Grove, Riverland and Wilson Groves, the properties west of I-95, along with St. Lucie West, as areas not considered part of the original platted city.

The growth page explains the difference. Port St. Lucie was originally developed by General Development Corporation, which divided 66 square miles into primarily single family lots with minimal infrastructure such as roads and drainage, and that platting began in the 1950s and continued through the 1980s (City of Port St. Lucie growth and development page). The city's first Comprehensive Plan was approved in 1980.

The master plan for Southern Grove describes the Tradition DRI as noted for its high design standards, with an urban, mixed use form in its Village Center and neighborhoods (Southern Grove Master Plan, 2021).

Tradition lies west of I-95 in Port St. Lucie along Tradition Parkway and Village Parkway, and its Southern Grove section reaches south to Becker Road and the Martin County line.

The city fact sheet places Southern Grove, the southern part of Tradition, east and west of Village Parkway, south of Tradition Parkway and north of the Martin County line by Becker Road (Southern Grove fact sheet). The master plan study area is bounded by SW Discovery Way to the north, I-95 to the east, Becker Road to the south and Village Parkway to the west, and says the Tradition DRI extends north and west of Southern Grove, with the Martin County boundary just south of Becker Road (Southern Grove Master Plan). The plan notes nearly four miles of frontage along I-95.

The Southern Grove fact sheet lists the I-95 interchange at Becker Road among the district's improvements, and the Florida Department of Transportation's I-95 master plan for the Treasure Coast lists Becker Road, Gatlin Boulevard/Tradition Parkway and Crosstown Parkway among the interchanges to be studied (FDOT I-95 Treasure Coast master plan). Tradition Regional Park sits a quarter mile from the Tradition Parkway terminus at the Fern Lake Roundabout (Tradition Regional Park page).

Tradition began in the early 2000s as a proposed development of regional impact, and in 2018 the Port St. Lucie City Council voted to accept a transfer of unsold commercial land in Southern Grove.

The city fact sheet says developer Core Communities owned the land in the early 2000s and proposed the original Tradition Development of Regional Impact, and that after a 2010 default Southern Grove passed to a new owner through a consensual foreclosure (Southern Grove fact sheet). As far back as 2004, an Urban Land Institute report designated 1,321 acres of the Southern Grove jobs corridor as an employment center, and the city describes that corridor as able to hold more than 22,500 jobs in retail, office, hotel, warehousing, hospital and research uses.

At a special meeting on March 29, 2018, the City Council approved the option under which the landowner would transfer unsold commercial land in Southern Grove to the city, with 1,247 acres offered and city staff recommending that the Port St. Lucie Governmental Finance Corporation accept 1,223 acres, the rest to be transferred at a later date. The city then had the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council prepare an updated plan, engaging it in October 2019, and adopted the Southern Grove Master Plan by Resolution 21-R18 on February 22, 2021 (Southern Grove Master Plan).

Southern Grove is a 3,605 acre development of regional impact south of Tradition Parkway, approved for research and development, industrial, commercial and residential uses, and it contains the Tradition Center for Innovation and the Tradition Center for Commerce.

The city lists Tradition Medical Center, Keiser University, the Florida Center for Biosciences and the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies inside the Tradition Center for Innovation, and also places the developing Tradition Center for Commerce in Southern Grove (Southern Grove fact sheet). The fact sheet calls the land shovel ready and entitled for commercial and industrial uses, and says that because of the way the original city was platted, no other similar vacant, large commercial and industrial parcels exist in Port St. Lucie or all of South Florida for this jobs corridor.

The fact sheet describes Western Grove as the undeveloped western region of Tradition. For Tradition Regional Park, the park page gives 110 acres and the parks master plan inventory lists 124.7.

Much of Southern Grove's backbone was paid for through a city Special Assessment District created in 2007 to fund $165,529,700 in infrastructure, repaid by yearly special assessments on the parcels and backed by a city promise to budget for any unpaid amount.

The fact sheet lists the improvements: a four mile divided Village Parkway from Becker Road to Tradition Parkway with signals, water and sewer trunk lines on Village Parkway, Community Boulevard south of Tradition Parkway, the I-95 interchange at Becker Road, and a four lane divided section of Becker Road from I-95 to Village Parkway (Southern Grove fact sheet). Special assessment bonds paid for the work, and the city enhanced their credit in 2007 with a Covenant to Budget and Appropriate, under which it pays if a property owner does not.

Because of the covenant, the fact sheet says, the city is responsible for paying the special assessments until the land is sold, whichever of its three options it chose. The 2021 master plan says the city inherited substantial infrastructure bond debt, an approximately $4.5 million annual burden in 2020 figures, through 2045 when the bonds will be retired (Southern Grove Master Plan). As parcels sell, the fact sheet says, new owners take over the assessment payments on their property.

St. Lucie Public Schools runs Palm Pointe K-8 at 10680 Academic Way and lists Tradition Lakes K-8 nearby, two charter schools sit on Tradition Parkway, and the city lists Tradition Regional Park as under construction.

The district profile for Palm Pointe K-8 gives the address 10680 Academic Way, Port St. Lucie, FL 34987, phone (772) 345-3245, grades K-8, hours 9:40 a.m. to 4:10 p.m., capacity 1590 and School Board District 1, and the school describes itself as located in the heart of Tradition (Palm Pointe K-8 profile). Tradition Lakes K-8 is listed near Tradition at 10701 SW Sundance Vista Blvd, FL 34987, phone (772) 301-7900, grades PreK-8, School Board District 5 (Tradition Lakes K-8 profile). The district charter list includes Renaissance Charter School of Tradition (K-8) at 10900 SW Tradition Parkway and Renaissance Tradition Preparatory High School (9-12) at 10970 Tradition Parkway (St. Lucie Public Schools charter schools list). The Port St. Lucie charter schools guide covers those two schools' grades.

The city lists Tradition Regional Park as under construction and describes the PSL BMX facility, with a pump track and a bicycle safety learning area, as its signature feature, along with planned baseball, softball, soccer and multipurpose fields (Tradition Regional Park page). The parks master plan records $150,522 of impact fee money spent on the BMX park design in fiscal year 2023 (Port St. Lucie parks master plan update).

Last verified: October 22, 2026, against the city Southern Grove fact sheet and master plan, the city growth page, the Tradition Regional Park page and parks master plan, three St. Lucie Public Schools listings and the FDOT I-95 master plan page.