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Citrus Grove, Tallahassee, Leon County, Florida

Up to 542 homes approved on about 149 acres between Apalachee Parkway and Old St. Augustine Road, at April Road on the southeast side of Tallahassee. The dirt is moving: the eastern half of the first phase is cleared and graded and the stormwater pond is cut and holding water. What does not exist yet is a price, a floor plan, a lot size, an address or an opening date.

At a glance

Homes approved

Up to 542, across at least four phases

Home types

Single-family detached houses and townhomes

Site size

About 149 acres

Density

Roughly 3.6 homes to the acre

First phase

About 37 acres

Later phases

A little over 300 single-family lots filed

Where

Unincorporated Leon County, postal Tallahassee

ZIP code

32311

Between

Apalachee Parkway and Old St. Augustine Road, at April Road

County approval

Development approval adopted unanimously, spring 2024

State permit

Issued, now at its construction compliance stage

Site work

Land cleared and graded, stormwater pond cut

Vertical construction

Not started, no building permit pulled

Recorded plat

None on record yet

Street addresses

Not yet assigned to any lot

Street names

Four reserved with the county, not yet assigned

Special flood hazard area

The first-phase tract is split, part in and part out

Electric service

City of Tallahassee utility

School district

Leon County Schools

Water and sewer provider

Not established, confirm before you commit Get notified

Community development district

Not confirmed either way, ask Get notified

Pricing

Not yet released Get notified

Floor plans

Not yet released Get notified

Lot sizes

Not yet released Get notified

Homeowners association dues

Not yet released Get notified

Amenities

Not yet released Get notified

Sales office

Not yet open Get notified

Opening date

Not yet announced Get 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.

What is actually here

A planned unit development on about 149 acres, adopted unanimously by the county commission in the spring of 2024 and approved for up to 542 homes at roughly 3.6 homes to the acre, in single-family detached houses and townhomes. The land lies between Apalachee Parkway and Old St. Augustine Road at April Road, with established Hampton Creek immediately west. The first phase covers about 37 acres. A later filing covers a little over 300 single-family lots, and a small amenity centre is in county review for a later phase; those phases are still working through that review.

Now the part that is easy to get wrong. D.R. Horton, a national homebuilder, is the applicant of record in its own name on the state environmental resource permit for the site work, and the applicant on the county site plans. It does not own the land. Title to both tracts is held by two land-banking companies based in Daphne, Alabama, which bought the parcels from the previous timber-and-land owner at the end of 2025. That land banker has a track record of delivering finished lots to D.R. Horton. The permits and that pattern point the same way, and that is what the record shows rather than anyone's commitment. Nothing about the homes has been released yet.

Subdiview is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by D.R. Horton. D.R. Horton 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.

The ground is already moving

This is what separates Citrus Grove from an approval sitting on paper. Site work is unmistakable on current overhead imagery: a straight-edged graded block with a clean right-angle step across the eastern half of the first-phase tract, a crisp rectangular stormwater pond already cut and holding water, and a stockpile alongside. The same ground was uniform vegetation a year earlier, and the land around it got greener over the same period, so this is real clearing, not a dry spell.

The clearing is authorised: the state environmental resource permit covering this acreage is issued and has advanced to its construction compliance stage, the stage a permit reaches once work is under way against it.

What has not happened matters just as much. No plat has recorded and no building permit of any kind has been pulled, so there is no vertical construction and no model home, and both tracts are still carried as vacant acreage. Graded ground with a pond in it is far past an approval and short of a house you can walk through.

Four street names, reserved and not yet assigned

The county has reserved a set of street names for this subdivision, all citrus varieties: Amber Sweet, Flame, Hamlin and Navel. A reserved name is held at the county for future use. It is not an assigned address and not a street you could drive down today, and no addresses have been cut for any lot here. There is a single address point at the entrance, and the county's own note on it says it exists for area lighting and utility billing, not for a building permit.

Streets get named and numbered when a plat records, and the same event creates the lot lines, the dimensions, the final lot count and the addresses that school assignment and a lot-level flood determination both run off.

Southeast Tallahassee, and the two roads that define it

This is the east side of Tallahassee on the Apalachee Parkway corridor, the main eastbound commuter artery, which runs roughly seven to eight miles back inbound to the Capitol complex. Old St. Augustine Road is the quieter south-side connector on the other frontage, a two-lane road threading between older neighbourhoods. Having both is the practical appeal here: one fast road and one slow one.

The immediate neighbours are established east-side subdivisions rather than open country: Hampton Creek directly west, with Claret Village, Lexington Parc, Weldon Farms, Golden Pheasant, Timber Lake and Woodland Place nearby.

Retail is the honest tradeoff of the east side. A commercial node on the parkway nearby covers the everyday errand, and the Governors Square area inbound is the established mall-and-grocery cluster. We have not measured drive times.

A government and university town, which changes the math

Tallahassee is not a normal Florida housing market. State government and higher education are the two largest forces in the local economy, and neither behaves like the tourism and in-migration engines driving the rest of the state. The state employment base is the anchor: the Capitol, the legislature, the agency offices downtown and the courts. That is a large block of stable, salaried, year-round work, and it is why this market historically moves less violently than the coastal metros.

Then the universities. Florida State and Florida A and M are both here, with Tallahassee Community College, and together they are an enormous employer as well as the source of the student population. Add Tallahassee Memorial and the healthcare employment around it, and the buyer pool skews toward state employees, academics, clinicians and lawyers.

Why that matters out here: most rental demand sits near the campuses, a long way from this side of town, so the buyers who land here are households wanting a workable commute downtown.

Outdoors, and what locals actually use

The east and south sides carry the best of the city's outdoor network, and that is a genuine reason people choose this quadrant. Lafayette Heritage Trail is the nearest: trails and boardwalks along Lake Lafayette, with footbridges over the water and a link into a much larger regional greenway.

South of the city, the Munson Hills and the Cadillac trail network are the serious mountain-biking ground in this part of Florida, cut into the sandhills with real elevation change by Florida standards and connecting to the long paved rail trail toward the coast. Set against that, no amenity list has been released for the community itself.

The split flood mapping, handled honestly

Part of the Phase I tract is mapped inside the special flood hazard area and part of it is mapped outside. Read that twice, because it is neither the clean yes nor the clean no buyers hope for. Split mapping is common on north Florida acreage, where creeks, flatwoods and shallow drainage ways wander across property lines without regard for lot layouts, and it is not by itself a reason to walk away.

It does mean a community-level answer is useless to you. Two homesites a few hundred feet apart in the same phase can land on opposite sides of that line, and the consequences are not small: lender-required flood insurance, its cost, elevation certificate requirements and resale all turn on it.

Two more things, one in each direction. The mapped line sits on raw land as it stands today, and development commonly regrades ground and builds pads up, so the mapping on a finished lot is not necessarily the mapping on the acreage. That is a reason to ask, not to assume: nobody can promise it will change. In the other direction, a hazard map speaks only to a one percent annual chance flood, not to rainfall that outruns whatever drainage is built. So get the determination for your homesite in writing before you are committed, and price the insurance from it.

Hurricanes, insurance and the north Florida reality

Tallahassee is inland, far enough from the coast that storm surge is not the threat here, which is a real advantage over a coastal address, and not far enough inland to be out of the wind. A Gulf storm landing to the south or west still arrives carrying damaging wind, in a city under a heavy tree canopy, so the consequence of a major storm is wind damage, falling trees and long power outages, not sea water.

New construction is a genuine advantage against that. A home built to the current Florida Building Code with a wind mitigation inspection on file earns the largest insurance credits available: roof deck attachment, secondary water resistance, opening protection and roof-to-wall connections. On a Florida monthly payment the insurance line moves the total more than anything except the rate.

So get a bound insurance quote on the specific plan and homesite before your contingencies expire, since the flood determination and the wind mitigation features both feed it. And ask what tree cover is being retained: mature trees are most of why people like this part of town, and also what lands on a roof.

The cost stack: taxes, the homestead exemption and the district question

Start with what is knowable. The land sits in unincorporated Leon County, so your bill combines the county levy, the school board levies and the water management district rather than adding a city levy on top, which is a real difference. No rate is quoted here, because a number nobody checked is worse than no number: ask the county for the current combined rate and run it against a real sale price.

Florida's homestead exemption is statewide and set by state law, not by Leon County. It exempts the first twenty-five thousand dollars of assessed value from all levies and a further twenty-five thousand of value between fifty and seventy-five thousand from everything except school levies, and the Save Our Homes cap then limits how fast assessed value can rise afterwards. None of it travels with the house: it begins once you own and occupy the home and file. Expect the first full tax year to jump hard, because the land is assessed as vacant acreage today.

Then the question that catches Florida buyers out more than any other. A community development district is a special-purpose local government that borrows to build a community's roads, drainage and utilities and repays those bonds through an annual assessment on every home inside it, collected on your tax bill. It does not replace an association: where both exist you pay both, often well over a thousand dollars a year for decades.

For this community, whether a district applies is not confirmed. No district for Citrus Grove surfaced in the sources available, and the only one of that kind in the county belongs to a different community, but the record that would settle it could not be reached. The trap: a Florida district assessment is non-ad-valorem, so it never appears in the ordinary tax record, and a clean-looking tax code proves nothing either way. Ask in writing the day a sales office opens, for the annual amount and the remaining term.

Association dues have not been released either. Expect an association, and read its reserve schedule before you read its renderings.

Utilities, schools and what follows an address

Electric service and the area lighting at the site come from the City of Tallahassee utility, even though the land is in unincorporated county. That is counterintuitive and it is a recorded fact rather than an inference: the city utility bills electric and area lighting outside the city limits. Water and sewer are a different matter and the provider is not established by name. The approvals point to a centralised system rather than wells and septic, but confirm it and any impact fees first.

Schools are Leon County Schools, which serves the whole county, so the district is certain. The assigned elementary, middle and high schools are not, and this page will not assert them: assignment follows address assignment, no lot here has an address yet, and boundaries get redrawn. Once a homesite has an address, run it through the district's own school locator, and if a particular school is the reason you are buying, make it a written condition.

What buying before the plat involves

You are choosing a homesite from a plan rather than from the ground: until a plat records, dimensions, setbacks, orientation and what sits behind you can all still move. The contract mechanics are where the real exposure sits: the deposit structure and when deposits go hard, what the builder may substitute, what happens if completion slips past a stated target, how any escalation clause works, and what the warranty covers. Those terms vary far more between builders than the houses do. Here, add the lot-level flood determination, the water and sewer provider and its fees, the district question, the dues and the real amenity commitment. Every one is unanswerable today, and every one is a number in your monthly payment.

The honest tradeoffs

In its favour: the approval is adopted, the state permit is issued and has reached its construction compliance stage, and the ground is genuinely cleared and graded with a stormwater pond in place, far past the paper stage where most approvals stall. The location gives you a fast parkway inbound to the state employment base, established neighbourhoods next door and the city's best trail network within reach.

Against it, plainly: almost nothing is released. No price, no floor plan, no lot size, no dues, no amenity list, no opening date. Part of the first-phase tract is mapped inside the special flood hazard area, and until a plat exists you cannot know which side of that line a homesite lands on. Whether a district assessment applies is unresolved, potentially a four-figure annual cost. And a 542-home approval means living beside active construction for years if you buy early.

Buying from a national builder, with someone on your side

There is no sales office here yet and no model home, which changes how first contact works. At this stage your first interaction with any builder is almost always a registration rather than a visit: a form, an enquiry, a name on a list. That is where the representation question gets decided.

The person at the desk in a builder's sales centre works for the builder. They are usually knowledgeable and often helpful, and they are also paid by and accountable to the party on the other side of your contract. That is simply what the job is, and it means the only person reading your purchase agreement for you is whoever you brought.

Your own representation generally costs a buyer nothing extra, because builders budget for a buyer's agent whether or not you bring one. Where people lose it is timing: most builders will only recognise your agent if that agent is named at your very first registration, and once you have registered yourself the door is usually shut. Arrange it before you fill in a builder's form.

What is still genuinely unknown

Not released: pricing, floor plans, lot sizes and dimensions, the final first-phase lot count, the association name and dues, the amenity list, a sales office, a model home and an opening date. Not established: any recorded plat, and therefore any lot lines or assigned addresses; the assigned schools, which follow from those addresses; the water and sewer provider; whether a district applies; and the millage rate here.

One honest limit on our side. The county's permit history record refused automated access, so we cannot tell you whether a first-phase county horizontal construction authorisation exists by number, and not reaching a record is not evidence it is empty. What is verified is the adopted development approval, the issued state permit now at its construction compliance stage, the issued county stormwater permit for the amenity area, the absence of any recorded plat or building permit, and the condition of the ground. The rest arrives when a builder goes to market.

One note on the name

Citrus Grove is a common name in Florida, and the collisions are real: there are places called Citrus Grove in Hillsborough, Polk and Collier counties and near Naples, and a plain search hands you those first. This is the Leon County one, at April Road east of Hampton Creek in the 32311 ZIP code. Search it with Tallahassee or Leon County attached.

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