If you've walked or biked the Historic Jungle Trail along Windsor's western edge this summer, you've likely noticed something that wasn't there a year ago: a freshwater lake, complete with a small island and a bridge, sitting where rows of citrus trees once baked under full sun. Cut into the same ground, a tidal estuary reaches toward the Indian River Lagoon, joined to the lake by a weir.

None of this is new construction in the way most people picture it. Not a single stud has gone up. What you're looking at is North Village, the last 47 acres of Windsor's original master plan, and this summer it reached a milestone eight years in the making. The ground is essentially finished, planted, and shaped, while the houses meant to eventually sit on it are still just approved lots waiting on permits.

That order, ground first, water first, mature trees first, houses last, is the detail worth understanding if you already call Windsor home. It tells you what to expect from this corner of the community before a single building appears, and it explains why the newest piece of your neighborhood is arriving looking older than new construction usually does.

Eight Years to Get Here

North Village has been on Windsor's books since 2018, when the community first brought a conceptual plan to Indian River County for the 52 acres Galen Weston bought from Kennedy Groves back in 1999. Getting from that first filing to dirt moving took longer than most people watching from the outside would guess.

1. 2018 — Windsor presents an initial concept plan to county planners; some neighboring landowners raise concerns.
2. The years that followed — The project stalls through the pandemic, alongside internal rethinking that sharpened its environmental focus.
3. November 2023 — County commissioners approve the site plan and planned development unanimously, after a meeting where they questioned the project at length.
4. October 2024 — The land development permit, the last technical approval standing between Windsor and a shovel in the ground, is issued.
5. December 2024 — Site work begins.
6. October 2025 — Underground utilities are installed, roads are mostly complete, and the lake, island, bridge, estuary, and weir are already carved into the site.
7. Spring 2026 — Windsor's own stated timeline called for home construction to begin, once a final plat plan cleared the county and the 25 lots already sold could close.

If that spring start held, this is the first summer Members walking the trail could see actual home construction rather than grading and utility work. Either way, the eight-year gap between the first plan and the first foundation says something about how much has to happen underground and on paper before a coastal community this size adds its final piece.

The Part That Usually Comes Last, Came First

In most new subdivisions, mature trees arrive after the houses: young saplings staked next to finished driveways, filling in slowly over a decade. Windsor built North Village in reverse.

Mark Justice, Windsor's vice president of construction, oversaw the relocation of more than 500 mature oak trees and 1,100 sabal palms already growing on the property, moving full-grown specimens rather than clearing the site and replacing them with young stock. The oaks and palms went back into North Village's parks and street rows before a single home lot was framed.

"It already feels like Old Florida." — Mark Justice, Windsor's vice president of construction

That decision changes what the next few years will look like for anyone walking through. New subdivisions typically read as thin and exposed for five to ten years, waiting for plantings to catch up to the houses around them. North Village skips that wait, because the canopy that took decades to grow was already standing on the property. It was moved, not started over.

What Else Is Taking Shape

Open ground accounts for most of the 47 acres: more than 26.5 acres are set aside as parks and greens, plus another 9.7 acres of lake and estuary, together well over three-quarters of the site. The remaining acreage holds 34 homesites and six row houses. Once complete, North Village will add:

• A freshwater lake and a tidal estuary connected by a weir, with the estuary reaching toward the Indian River Lagoon on the site's west side.
• A kayak launch with direct lagoon access.
• An observation platform overlooking the neighboring Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, the first federal wildlife refuge established in the United States.
• A fitness and wellness center just over 12,600 square feet, with spa rooms, open to every Windsor Member rather than reserved for North Village buyers alone.
• Trails through the grounds for walking, biking, and horseback riding.

Andrés Duany and DPZ CoDesign, the same firm that planned the rest of Windsor in the early 1990s, designed North Village too, so its streets and gathering spaces are meant to read as a continuation of the community rather than a break from it. The building code differs in one notable way: homes here are required to meet a higher sustainability standard, including Passive House-level efficiency, and the architecture leans slightly more contemporary than Windsor's original Anglo-Caribbean style, according to the community's own description of the updated code.

Once North Village is finished, the total homesite count at Windsor closes at roughly 390, the original 350 plus the 40 here. Under the current plan, this is the last piece Windsor ever adds.

A Quiet Season With Its Own Kind of Activity

Windsor's calendar usually goes still after polo season wraps each spring. This year's Windsor Charity Polo Cup ran its biennial event on February 14, and summer typically functions as the pause between one social season and the next. This year, the pause has a construction crew in it.

For Members who've watched North Village exist only as a rendering and a set of county filings since 2018, that's the real shift. The water is in, the mature trees are back in the ground, and if the spring construction timeline held, the next thing to rise on those 47 acres will be houses instead of equipment and dirt piles.

Whether you're tracking North Village on your morning walk or just curious what's behind the activity near the trail, it's worth knowing what you're actually looking at: the last piece of Windsor's original plan, restored before it was rebuilt. Cindy O'Dare and the O'Dare Boga Dobson Group keep a close eye on what's changing across Windsor and the rest of the barrier island, from the inside.