Know what your land can build. Before you pay anyone to draw it.
Most owners do it backwards. Architect first. Engineer second. Surveyor third. A year later somebody finally tells them the site will not carry the plan. I work the other way. Constraints first. Numbers second. Drawings last.
- What your site will actually support
- Whether the numbers work, in real dollars
- The rezoning path, if it needs one
- Who to hire, in what order, and what it should cost
- And if you are buying or selling it, I negotiate the deal
I own land and want to develop it.
Find out what it will carry, and what it is worth once it does.
I want to build a modern home or commercial project.
Plan it properly before the money starts moving.
I need help with a stalled or complicated project.
Find the one constraint that is holding everything up.
I need help negotiating a property purchase or sale.
Price, terms and timeline, argued by someone who has sat in that chair.
Worked With
Three ways owners bring me in.
Some people hand me a project. Some people hand me a decision. Either way the work starts the same: find the constraint, price it honestly, then move.
Property Acquisition & Negotiation
I sit across the table from buyers and sellers on land, homes, warehouses and commercial property. I argue the price, the terms, the timeline and the contingencies — and I tell you when the right move is to walk away.
See the KB Home exit
Development Strategy & Project Vision
What will this land actually carry, and what is it worth once it does. I map the route from raw ground through entitlements, rezoning, design and construction — in the order that stops you paying for drawings the site was never going to support.
See the case studies
Mentoring & Consulting
Plenty of owners do not need me to run the project. They need a straight answer on the decision sitting in front of them this week. I work alongside owners and developers on the calls, the drawings and the numbers, so the thing keeps moving.
See how I got here
Real land. Real addresses. Real outcomes.
Every project, on one page. Rezonings, subdivisions, assemblages, homes built from nothing, and the deals I was disciplined enough to walk away from. Click any photo to open it full frame.
One House. Nine Acres. Rezoned for 41 Homes.
One tired house on nine acres. I took the property through rezoning until it was a development opportunity for 41 homes, then sold it to KB Home for $1.25 million.
The entitlement is the work. I created the opportunity and sold it. KB Home built the houses.
The street was later named Cruz Court after my family.
The First Butterfly Roof Homes Built in Florida in 100 Years
One lot, in a market that expected a standard builder box. I split it into three and built two homes to a real design standard, drawing on Frank Lloyd Wright's work.
I ran the acquisition, the design direction, the permitting and the construction through completion.
The Ledger put it on the front page and the City of Lakeland gave it a Beautification Award.
The GC Quit. The Money Ran Out. We Built It Anyway.
I sat on the Habitat board and led their first modern home. Then the general contractor quit and the budget died.
Four of us picked up the tools and finished the electrical, the plumbing and the drywall ourselves. A family moved into a finished four bedroom, two bathroom house.
22 Acres Assembled Into 63.4, In Six Months
It started as one 22 acre Habitat parcel. I spent six months stacking seven properties around it until it was 63.4 contiguous acres of industrial land, then handed it to partners at a number nobody thought was possible.
Value is not found. It is built.
131 Acres Entitled Three Ways, Then Expanded to 171
Most people buy land with one exit and pray. I entitled this parkway frontage so it could go high density residential, light industrial, or vehicle storage, then expanded it to 171 acres.
When you have four ways to win, you do not need luck.
I Made Money On Land The County Said Was Worthless
Broken title. Unsafe access. Zoning that would never allow the housing they wanted. Everyone else walked.
I cleared the deed, repositioned it as light industrial, and built a real exit. Problems are just profit that nobody has solved yet.
Unusable Land, Until I Picked Up The Phone
Everyone called it unusable. I called CSX and CEMEX directly and suddenly it had three futures: industrial, townhomes, or single family.
I was bought out of a deal I created from nothing. Relationships are leverage, and leverage is money.
The Seller Said 16 Acres. Only 4 Were Real.
Marketed as 16 buildable acres. Diligence proved only 4 were real.
Instead of walking I restructured it into a 96 unit affordable community with a trail connection to Simpson Park, and wrote the contracts so the seller stayed honest. Facts do not scare me. They are the starting line.
I Killed A Deal Before It Could Kill My Client
Storage, housing, a business park. On paper this had four ways to win. Then the soil and wetland studies told the truth and I walked.
Knowing which deals to run from is worth more than any deal you force.
I Walked Away From 11 Lots On Purpose
This one looked perfect. Eleven lots, right across from my award winning project. Then diligence found the drainage easements that gutted the yield.
I walked. The deals you do not do protect the ones you do.
Nine Acres Grown to 13.1 and Rezoned for 96 Homes
Everybody saw 9 acres. I went back to the 1925 Westgate plat and saw a neighborhood nobody had built yet.
By the time I was done it was 13.1 acres, rezoned, and approved for 96 affordable units plus a veteran garden. That is the difference between owning land and knowing what land can become.
717 W. 13th Street
A single home taken from a formed pad to a framed structure, documented the whole way.
The labor agreement is written in defined phases rather than one lump scope, with completion tied to an incentive. Phased scope makes it obvious what is done, what is owed, and where a schedule is slipping while there is still time to act.
0 Shepherd Rd.
A dentist reached out after hearing about my rezoning work. He liked the location. What he needed was to know whether the property could actually carry the building, what it would really cost to buy, and what it would take to develop.
I set the direction for the entire project before he started hiring individual professionals, so due diligence, design, approvals, budget and construction planning were connected from the start instead of each being solved on its own and reconciled later.
- Negotiated better purchase terms and a price reduction of nearly $50,000.
- Identified wetlands and evaluated how to address their impact on development.
- Assembled the project team, including the civil engineer.
- Secured rezoning approval.
- Secured horizontal site development plan approval.
A beautiful home for every ordinary person.
"The house of moderate cost is not only America's major architectural problem, but the problem most difficult for her major architects."Frank Lloyd Wright, on the Usonian home
Wright spent his life on a radical idea: that dignity, light and honest design should never be reserved for the wealthy. His Usonian homes were built for working families. Modest, efficient, made of real materials, and rooted in the land they stood on.
That standard is what I build to. It is why 716 and 720 W. 14th Street have butterfly roofs instead of the usual gable, why the roof form was settled before framing rather than after, and why Olive Street was planned off the original 1925 plat instead of dropped onto the site.
Lakeland sits two miles from the largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the world. That is not a coincidence I ignore.
One house. Then a street. Then a community.
Service
U.S. Army Veteran
Seven years of service, including a combat deployment to Iraq from 2003 to 2005. Leadership, discipline, mission first.
It handed me a framework no business school teaches. Mission clarity. Pressure under fire. Knowing when to advance and when to hold. Every one of those shows up in a development deal.
From One to 41
One House on Nine Acres Became Cruz Court
Most people see a vacant lot and walk away. I saw a street.
One tired house on nine acres, taken through rezoning into a development opportunity for 41 homes, then sold to KB Home for $1.25 million. They named the street Cruz Court. That is the project that changed what I thought was possible.
Giving Back
Habitat for Humanity, and the House We Finished Ourselves
I sat on the Habitat board and led their first modern home at 709 N. Vermont Avenue. Then the general contractor quit and the budget died.
Four of us picked up the tools and finished the electrical, the plumbing and the drywall. A family moved into a finished house. Giving back is not a line in a bio, it is a Saturday with a drill in your hand.
The Craft
Architecture, Development and Construction, Under One Head
716 and 720 W. 14th Street are the first Butterfly Roof homes built in Florida in over a century. Front page of The Ledger, and a City of Lakeland Beautification Award.
The craft is refusing to let the disciplines sit in separate rooms. What the site allows, what the numbers support, which approvals are needed, and how the thing actually gets built are one conversation, not four.
The Next Chapters
Olive Street, 717 W. 13th, and Shepherd Road
Olive Street is 13.1 acres rezoned and approved for 96 homes plus a veteran garden, planned off the original 1925 Westgate plat. 717 W. 13th Street is framed and under construction. 0 Shepherd Rd. took a dentist's raw residential land through rezoning and into a commercial building.
Three projects, three stages, all documented as they happen. The next chapter is somebody else's property.
I'm Franklin Andrew Cruz.
A real estate developer and U.S. Army veteran. My work spans land evaluation, rezoning, subdivisions, and individual homes.
I help connect the decisions that shape a project: what the site allows, what the numbers support, which approvals are needed, and how to coordinate the people who move it forward.
I call this Development Architecture™.
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