Approved and pre-construction near Lakeland, FL
Crews Lake
400 approved homes on about 151 acres, with Pulte named in the county file
The county Planning Commission approved this 400-home development in May 2026. An appeal was filed, then withdrawn by the person who requested it, and the county commission formally closed the matter in July 2026, making the approval final. Pulte is named as developer in the county's own records, and has published nothing about it. No plan, no price, no model.
- Area
- South Lakeland
- Homes
- 400 approved
- Site
- About 151 ac
- Status
- Approval final
At a glance
Crews Lake fast facts: approval final as of July 2026
Here is what is on the public record today and what has not been released. Anything marked not yet released, join the interest list and it goes out the day it drops.
- Area
- South Lakeland area, FL
- County
- Unincorporated Polk County
- Site
- About 151 acres
- Approved plan
- 400 single-family homes
- Zoning
- Planned Development
- Approved
- Planning Commission, May 2026
- Appeal
- Withdrawn July 2026, approval final
- Phasing
- Two phases
- Lot widths
- 50, 60 and 64 feet
- Named in county records
- Pulte, as developer
- Home plans and sizes
- Not yet releasedGet notified
- Pricing
- Not yet releasedGet notified
- Community name
- Not yet confirmedGet notified
- Model home opening
- Not yet announcedGet notified
Details on this page are compiled from public entitlement records and are targets, not commitments. Pricing, floor plans, home counts, and timing have not been released by the builder and are subject to change without notice.
Where it is
West of US Highway 98, south of Crews Lake Drive, west of Yarborough Lane, south of County Road 540-A and east of Dewitt Road, abutting the existing Crews Lake Woods subdivision. Unincorporated county land; Bartow is about half a mile east and the mailing designation is Lakeland 33813. No street addresses yet.
The approval just became final. Nothing is for sale.
That gap is the whole reason this page exists. The appeal was withdrawn in July 2026, which made a 400-home approval final and effective, and there is still no plan, no price and no model. Add your name, email and phone and you will hear the moment a phase is priced or a model opens, and be registered as represented before your first visit.
The part nobody has followed through
The appeal was withdrawn, which is what made this real
If you looked this project up a few months ago you would have found an approval under challenge, with an unresolved hearing on the calendar. That is where most coverage stopped. Here is what happened next, from the county's own minutes.
The Planning Commission approved the development unanimously in May 2026. Its order carried a standard but consequential condition: if anyone filed what Polk County calls a de novo appeal, the approval would not be final or effective until the Board of County Commissioners took final action on it. Someone filed one. A hearing was set for July 2026.
Before that hearing, the person who requested the appeal sent the county a letter withdrawing it. At the July meeting the county's land development director reported the withdrawal, the county attorney confirmed the letter, and the Board disposed of the item unanimously with no public hearing occurring at all. The agenda for that day carries the item marked withdrawn.
We then checked every Board agenda through the end of August 2026 to be sure nothing had been re-noticed or continued. Nothing had.
Why this matters: the Board took its final action, so the condition on the Planning Commission's order is satisfied and the approval is final and effective. A project that looked contingent in June is not contingent now. That change is not reflected anywhere else we can find, and it is the difference between a proposal and an entitlement.
The builder question
What the record does and does not say about Pulte
Pulte is named in Polk County's records for this project in three separate places, which is why we can tell you about it at all, and we want to be exact about what each one establishes.
The Board of County Commissioners titled its own hearing item using the Pulte name. The county's development review staff report refers to the project by that name more than once, including as the subject project's own label in its comparison of surrounding developments and in a cited school concurrency exhibit. And the application record lists Pulte Home Company as Developer, with a named contact.
Now the limits, which matter just as much. Pulte does not appear in the Planning Commission's Final Order, which names only the applicant attorney and the two property-owning entities. Pulte has issued no release about this community, lists it among no communities of its own, and no vertical construction has been approved. Being listed as developer on an application is a real fact about the public record; it is not the same as being the builder of record, and it is certainly not a sales program.
So the correct statement is: Pulte is named as developer in the county's records for this project. Not that Pulte is building it, will build it, or is selling here. If you see any of those claims elsewhere, they are going beyond what any document supports.
Do not confuse it with
Five other things called Crews Lake
This is the most crowded name we track anywhere, and getting it wrong will send you to a county park, a resale listing, or an entirely different development.
Crews Lake Park is a large county park in Hernando County, roughly an hour and a half north of here. It dominates search results for the bare phrase nationally and has nothing to do with any of this.
Crews Lake Woods is an existing, built subdivision immediately adjacent to this property. Homes there resell on the open market, so listings for it will keep surfacing when you search for new construction.
Crews Lake Haven is a different project elsewhere in Polk County, whose utility improvements the county accepted in 2025.
The Highlands Club is the separately approved 747-home development on about 300 acres next door, sharing this road network. Different owners, different filing, different approval track. It also happens to contain a roughly 28-acre lake actually named Crews Lake.
This community is 400 homes on about 151 acres, approved in May 2026 with the appeal withdrawn in July. If what you found has prices, photographs or an address, it is one of the others.
Location and costs
Unincorporated land between two cities
The property sits west of US Highway 98, south of Crews Lake Drive, west of Yarborough Lane, south of County Road 540-A and east of Dewitt Road, directly abutting the existing Crews Lake Woods subdivision. The county's staff report notes Bartow is about half a mile east; the application's address of record carries a Lakeland 33813 mailing designation. Both are true, and the land is in neither city.
That unincorporated status is worth real money. No city millage applies, county rather than city services do, and the county commission is the reviewing body. Because the mail comes addressed to Lakeland, buyers in this pocket regularly believe they are purchasing inside the city. Verify the jurisdiction on the specific parcel rather than trusting the mailing address.
On carrying costs: a tax bill here would combine county millage, the school board, the water management district and other special districts. Many Florida communities of this size also carry a community development district, which finances infrastructure through bonds repaid by an annual assessment on your tax notice, on top of HOA dues. Nothing of that kind has been established or published for this community, so there is no figure to quote.
We do not publish drive times to downtown Lakeland, Bartow, Tampa or Orlando, because this community has no assigned address or coordinates yet and any mileage would be invented precision. What is true and needs no number: it sits immediately west of US 98, the main north-south route through this part of the county.
What you need to know
Buying new construction, the smart way
Whoever ends up selling homes at Crews Lake, the same rule applies: the person at the model's sales desk works for the builder, not for you. They are usually helpful and usually honest, and they still represent the seller's side of the transaction. You are allowed, and smart, to have your own representation, and in almost every case it costs you nothing, because the builder budgets a cooperating commission into the deal whether you bring an agent or not.
The catch is timing. Most builders require your agent to register you on your first visit. Tour or sign in alone and bring an agent later, and the builder can refuse to recognize them, and you lose your representation for that community. Get connected before you tour, have your agent register you, and let them read the contract, the addenda, and, in Florida, the CDD disclosure.
On a 400-home community delivered in two phases, the first release in each phase usually carries the best homesites and the most pricing flexibility. With three different lot widths approved here, the wider homesites are the genuinely limited inventory, and they tend to go in the earliest releases.
Subdiview is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Pulte. Pulte and its community names are trademarks of their respective owners and are used here for identification only. All community information is compiled from public records and is subject to change. Pulte is named on this page because it is identified in Polk County's published entitlement records for this project; that is a statement of fact about the public record, not a representation of any relationship or of any sales program. Subdiview is operated by a real estate broker licensed in Illinois. We are not your agent, we do not represent you, and we perform no real estate brokerage services in this state. No one at Subdiview is licensed in this state. If you join an interest list, your information is referred to a real estate professional licensed in the state where the property is located, who will contact you directly. We are compensated by that professional's brokerage, not by you. All community details on this page are compiled from public records, are targets rather than commitments, and are subject to change without notice.
Questions and answers
Crews Lake FAQ
What is Crews Lake?
Crews Lake is an approved Planned Development on about 151 acres of unincorporated Polk County, between south Lakeland and Bartow. The approved plan is 400 single-family detached homes in two phases. The county's Planning Commission approved it in May 2026, and after an appeal was withdrawn in July 2026 the approval became final and effective. Nothing is built and nothing is for sale.
Is Pulte building this?
We have to be precise here, because the honest answer is more specific than yes or no. Polk County's own records name Pulte: the Board of County Commissioners titled its hearing item using the Pulte name, the county's development review staff report refers to the project by that name throughout, and Pulte Home Company is listed as Developer on the application record. What none of those documents establishes is builder-of-record status. Pulte has published nothing about this community, no vertical construction has been approved, and no homes are offered. So the accurate statement is that Pulte is named as developer in the county's records, not that Pulte is building or selling here.
Wait, there was an appeal? Is the approval actually valid?
Yes, and the sequence is worth understanding because it is genuinely unusual. The Planning Commission approved the development unanimously in May 2026. Its Final Order carried a standard condition: if someone filed a de novo appeal, the order would not be final or effective until the Board of County Commissioners took final action. Someone did file one, and a hearing was set for July 2026. Before that hearing, the person who requested it sent the county a letter withdrawing the appeal. The Board formally disposed of the matter, unanimously, at the July hearing without any public hearing occurring. We then checked every subsequent Board agenda through the end of August 2026 and found nothing further. So the Board took its final action, and the Planning Commission's approval stands as final and effective.
How many homes, exactly? I have seen 384.
400. The 384 figure appears in one structured data field of the county's online application record, and it conflicts with everything else: the development review staff report, the Final Order, the applicant's own written description of the work, and the Board's own agenda caption all say 400. When one database field disagrees with four documents including the approval itself, the documents win. The lot mix is also on record: 150 lots at 50 feet wide, 158 at 60 feet, and 92 at 64 feet.
Is this the same as The Highlands Club?
No, though they are neighbors and the confusion is completely understandable. There are two separately approved developments on the same stretch of road network west of US Highway 98. This one is 400 homes on about 151 acres. The other, The Highlands Club, is 747 homes on about 300 acres, with different owners and a different applicant filing, approved on its own track. Both went through Polk County in the same general period. We keep a separate page for each.
What about Crews Lake Woods, or Crews Lake Haven, or Crews Lake Park?
All different things, and this is the most confusing name in the county. Crews Lake Woods is an existing, built subdivision nearby, so its resale listings dominate search results for the name. Crews Lake Haven is an unrelated project elsewhere in Polk County; the county accepted its utility improvements in 2025. Crews Lake Park is a county park in Hernando County, roughly an hour and a half away, and it is the top search result for the phrase nationally. And a lake called Crews Lake sits inside the adjacent Highlands Club property. None of those is this community.
Where exactly is it?
West of US Highway 98, south of Crews Lake Drive, west of Yarborough Lane, south of County Road 540-A and east of Dewitt Road, abutting the existing Crews Lake Woods subdivision. It is unincorporated county land. The county's staff report notes that the City of Bartow is about half a mile east, while the address of record on the application carries a Lakeland 33813 mailing designation. Both are accurate: it sits between the two, in neither.
What will the homes be like?
The lot geometry is all that is on record, and it is more useful than it sounds. Of the 400 lots, 150 are 50 feet wide, 158 are 60 feet, and 92 are 64 feet, all on 120 or 130 foot depths, delivered in two phases. That is a fairly even spread across three lot widths rather than a single product type, which usually translates into a range of home sizes and price points within one community. Beyond that, nothing: no floor plans, no square footages, no elevations and no pricing have been released by anyone.
What will it actually be called?
Unclear, and worth flagging. The county record uses three different names for this project across its own documents: one in the staff report and Final Order, another on the application, and a third in the Board's hearing caption. None of them is confirmed as the name that will go on a marketing sign. Working names attached to a Planned Development often change at launch. We track this property by its approval and location as well as its name, so that if it is rebranded, the people on this list still get told.
Is it in the City of Lakeland or Bartow?
Neither. It is unincorporated Polk County. That is worth money to you: unincorporated property pays no city millage, and county rather than city services apply. Because the mailing address carries a Lakeland designation, buyers frequently assume they are buying inside the city when they are not. Verify the jurisdiction on the specific parcel rather than relying on the mailing address.
What schools would serve it?
Polk County Public Schools assigns attendance zones by physical address, and no addressed home exists here yet, so any school named today would be a guess. The county's file for this project does include a non-binding school concurrency determination, which is a capacity check rather than an assignment. This corridor is absorbing significant new rooftops, so expect boundaries to be reviewed. Run the specific address through the district's locator once addresses are assigned.
When will homes actually be available?
No date has been announced by anyone. The Planned Development approval is final, but the project has not cleared the county's Level 2 review, the detailed site and subdivision engineering stage, and there is no plat and no construction approval. Treat any date you encounter as a target rather than a commitment.
How do I get updates on Crews Lake?
Join the interest list on this page. We read Polk County's Planning Commission and Board of County Commissioners records directly, which is how the withdrawal of the appeal, and therefore the fact that this approval is now final, ended up documented here.
Be first in line
Get on the Crews Lake interest list
400 homes, an approval that became final only weeks ago, a national builder named in the county file, and still no sales brand, no model and no price. That is exactly why the list is worth being on: when a phase is priced or a model opens, the people on it hear first.
Joining costs nothing, creates no brokerage relationship, and does not obligate you to anything. When you are ready, a real estate professional licensed in Florida will reach out and can register you as represented before your first visit to a sales office.