British billionaire Joe Lewis, who was indicted on insider trading charges Tuesday, has a lengthy record of donations and development in Central Florida.
Lewis owns Tavistock Holding Co., the group that developed the Lake Nona area in Orlando into one of the region’s most innovative neighborhoods.
The Nona area is home to Medical City, a biomedical research and educational hub that includes Nemours Children’s Hospital, the University of Central Florida College of Medicine and the University of Florida Academic and Research Center.
Lewis donated $12.5 million of his own money and land to build the UCF medical school, as well as matching other donations. His generosity got him named the Orlando Sentinel’s 2006 Central Floridian of the Year.
In 1997, Lewis also made a $7.5 million gift to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Orlando and later unsuccessfully attempted to get the Scripps Institute to build an East Coast expansion of its biotech operations in the city.
In 2019, Lewis pledged $10 million and pieces of his world-renowned art collection to the Orlando Museum of Art in an effort to get the museum to relocate to Lake Nona, but that deal never materialized.
While Tavistock Group has divisions dedicated to the company’s luxury hotels and restaurant brands, it’s best known for residential development.
In 1993, Tavistock Group purchased what’s today known as the Isleworth Golf and Country Club, as well as the surrounding area. Lewis and his company assembled more than 175 residential lots when the previous owner declared bankruptcy.
Over the years, the community has expanded to over 300 homes. Lewis built his own 17,000-square-foot English-style mansion and listed it for sale in 2020 for $15 million.
Tavistock’s development of the Lake Nona area led to its growth from just 1,000 residents at the turn of the millennium to about 64,000 today, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
Just this year, Tavistock got city approval for Skylar Towers, its largest and tallest apartment community in Lake Nona to date. It would be made up of 627 residential units and include three mixed-use residential towers, the largest of which would be 18 stories high.
The Lake Nona area also includes the US Tennis Association National Campus, the Nona Adventure Park, and the Boxi Park food service area. The city center has attracted well-known corporations, such as KPMG and SIMCON.
On Wednesday, the company filed plans with Orlando for a massive new shopping center on Lake Nona Boulevard.
Tavistock’s latest initiative is the Sunbridge master-planned community spanning 27,000 acres in Osceola and Orange counties.
Sunbridge is set to feature 16,000 single-family homes and over 12,000 multifamily homes. The development is being designed to be environmentally friendly by including solar energy with every house and offering upgrades including electric vehicle chargers and Tesla roofs.
Tavistock at one point had offices in Orlando, the Bahamas, London, Mexico City, Beijing and San Diego.
For ten years, the company sponsored the Tavistock Cup, a team golf event that pitted the top-ranked golf professional members from six international golf clubs, including Islesworth and Lake Nona.
