Groves at Orchard Hills (Lake Wales) Homes for Sale

Groves at Orchard Hills is an approved but stalled development plan on the near south side of Lake Wales, Polk County, Florida, not a selling community. The honest frame: developer CBD Real Estate Investment of Celebration won final approval in December 2023 under the city's Lake Wales Envisioned walkable-neighborhood standards, no builder has signed on, and nothing is for sale today.

The site is about 223.3 acres of former citrus groves bounded by Belleview Drive on the north, Scenic Highway S (Hwy 17) on the west, Passion Play Road on the south, and 11th Street S on the east, bisected by S 9th Street and adjoining the established Ridge Manor neighborhood.

The approved program is roughly 907 residential units plus about 28,600 square feet of neighborhood commercial (LakeWalesNews.net, March 2024). Earlier filings ran as high as 1,063 lots (GrowthSpotter, 2021-2022), and a roughly 930-lot preliminary plan cleared the city commission unanimously in June 2023 after a redesign added curved streets, a roundabout on 9th Street, and a consolidated commercial center.

Here is the part a buyer must understand: the December 2023 approval calls for alley-loaded, walkable-neighborhood product, and CBD has told the city it cannot find a builder willing to build it. The developer asked to modify the plan toward conventional front-driveway homes; the Planning & Zoning board denied those modifications in January 2026, and the denial was upheld in February 2026 (GrowthSpotter).

There are no floor plans, no square footages, no finishes, and no pricing. Any number you see attached to this community today is invented. None has been published by the developer or the city.

For a buyer, this is a watch-list project, not a purchase. The land is entitled, the location is real, and the standoff between the developer and the city is unresolved.

Because nothing is built, the lifestyle is a plan on paper, but the plan and the location tell you what this would be if it delivers.

The approved design follows Lake Wales Envisioned standards: connected blocks, homes facing streets and open space, alley-loaded garages, and a neighborhood commercial component of roughly 28,600 square feet so daily errands could happen without leaving the community.

The setting is the near south side of Lake Wales, about 5 minutes from the downtown core and from AdventHealth Lake Wales on 11th Street. Bok Tower Gardens, the National Historic Landmark garden north of town, is roughly 10 to 15 minutes away and anchors the cultural identity of this stretch of the Lake Wales Ridge.

Earlier site plans showed a recreation center and retention ponds (GrowthSpotter, June 2023), but no amenity package is final or funded. Treat every amenity as conditional until a builder commits.

Context matters here: Lake Wales has approved more than 15,660 new residential units across roughly 40 projects (LakeWalesNews.net, March 2024), so this community, if it proceeds, would open into a fast-growing south-and-east corridor that includes Steeple Chase to the north, Whispering Ridge, Leoma's Landing, Hunt Club Groves, and the 1,800-acre ViaTerra master plan.

There is nothing to commit to yet, and that is the point. No HOA has been formed, no dues published, and no CDD confirmed. If the project revives, demand the HOA budget and any district financing in writing before signing anything, and verify on the Polk County tax roll once the community plats.

Timeline risk is the defining feature. The approval is real, but the developer has publicly struggled to attach a builder to the approved product, and the city has so far refused to loosen the standards. That standoff could resolve next quarter or sit for years; nobody has published a date, and you should not accept one secondhand.

School assignments should be confirmed by homesite. Polk County is the district, and the Lake Wales Charter Schools system operates the zoned public schools serving greater Lake Wales, including Bok Academy and Lake Wales High; boundaries and enrollment rules can change before this community delivers a single home.

If your move has a real deadline, cross-shop the Lake Wales communities that are actually selling today, including Leoma's Landing and other new construction along the Chalet Suzanne and 11th Street corridors.

The fairest comparison is by lifecycle stage. Against Leoma's Landing, a Lake Wales new-construction community where homes exist and close, Groves at Orchard Hills is the opposite end of the pipeline: fully entitled, zero vertical construction, no builder, and no price sheet, but a larger and more walkable approved plan if it delivers. Against Steeple Chase, the CBD tract immediately north, it shares both the developer and the predicament, since both were approved in December 2023 under walkable standards and both had requested modifications denied in early 2026 (GrowthSpotter, February 2026). Against ViaTerra, the 1,800-acre master plan on the east side of Lake Wales where site work for the first homesites was reported to begin in early 2026 (Business Observer, December 2025), Orchard Hills is the cautionary case: entitlement alone does not produce homes. And to clear up a common search mix-up, this is not the Groves of Orchard Hills in Irvine, California; this page covers the approved development in Lake Wales, Polk County, Florida.

Groves at Orchard Hills fits the patient, research-minded buyer who wants early positioning on a close-in Lake Wales site if the project revives, the buyer who values the walkable plan, the neighborhood commercial component, and proximity to downtown Lake Wales and Bok Tower Gardens, and the land-watcher tracking how the Lake Wales Envisioned standards play out. It does not fit anyone who needs to move on any timeline, anyone who needs price, fee, or product certainty, or anyone who would treat an entitled-but-stalled plan as a buying opportunity today. The honest summary: this is a page to bookmark, not a community to shop. Watch the builder question and the city's posture, and buy where homes actually exist in the meantime.