Florida’s premier residential developer showcases its environmental efforts via its crown jewel, Babcock Ranch.
Tom Hoban doesn’t build homes. As president and chief investment officer of Kitson & Partners (K&P), he builds towns, and that distinction shapes almost everything about how he thinks about value per square foot.
“We’re not a home builder, we’re a developer,” Hoban says. “What we’re really selling, if you will, is the community, the place.” At Babcock Ranch, an 18,000-acre solar-powered town that K&P founder Syd Kitson began developing east of Fort Myers, Florida, in 2006, that means the value conversation starts long before anyone picks out a floor plan. It starts with why someone would want to live there at all.
Hoban’s pitch centers on peace of mind, a phrase he returns to repeatedly. Babcock Ranch was designed from the ground up to handle Southwest Florida’s punishing storm season, and the town has the track record to prove it. When Hurricane Ian tore through the region in 2022, Babcock Ranch didn’t lose power. It didn’t flood. It never issued a boil water notice.
VALUE VAULT
Inside Babcock Ranch
Kitson & Partners’ goal is to create responsible, forward-thinking, sustainable residential communities and retail shopping centers that meet the diverse needs of families, neighbors, businesses, surrounding communities, and the natural environment.
Courtesy Kitson & Partners
Babcock Ranch’s 870-acre solar farm provides electricity to more than 15,000 residents and 5,500 homes. It is the nation’s first entirely sun-powered master planned community.
Courtesy Kitson & Partners
Babcock Ranch includes a neighborhood charter school system for kindergarten to grade 12 students with programs that combine real-world learning, high student engagement, and strong community partnerships.
Courtesy Kitson & Partners
Babcock Ranch includes more than 100 miles of hiking and biking trails, wide sidewalks and bike lanes and heavy shade cover.
Courtesy Kitson & Partners
“There’s a much higher likelihood you will not lose your power at Babcock Ranch in the event of a storm,” Hoban says, pointing to the 150 megawatt solar partnership with Florida Power and Light, an elevated substation, buried and hardened transmission lines, and a stormwater system built around the property’s natural, century old water flow patterns rather than fighting them.
That resilience infrastructure isn’t something most buyers see when they tour a model home, but Hoban thinks it’s part of why the town’s health and wellness pitch lands so well. K&P pulled data from the American Home Study, in which roughly 16,000 buyers were surveyed over eight years, and found health and wellness ranked among the top three priorities nationally, regardless of who was buying.
Babcock Ranch backs that up with more than 100 miles of hiking and biking trails, wide sidewalks and bike lanes, heavy shade cover, strong street lighting, fiber connectivity to every home for telehealth and remote work, and an A-rated K-12 charter school on site.
Hoban is careful to separate his developer’s view from what the actual homebuilders at Babcock Ranch do. K&P requires every builder in the community to hit at least a Florida Green Building Coalition bronze certification, on top of Southwest Florida’s already strict building codes. The town itself carries a community-wide FGBC certification for its infrastructure. K&P is also weighing a Fortified neighborhood pilot to see whether it moves the needle on insurance access and pricing for homeowners, something Hoban says the team is close to but not quite ready to launch.
Ask Hoban whether the housing industry is ready to shift from price per square foot to value per square foot, and he doesn’t hesitate. “I think we’re moving there,” he says, though he’s quick to admit that real estate and construction aren’t exactly known for moving fast.
What’s changed, in his view, is that buyers are asking louder and more specifically for high-performance features than they used to. The catch, and it’s one he’s seen play out repeatedly, is that buyers don’t always want to pay for what they say they want.
He points to solar as the textbook example. People tell surveyors they want renewable energy, then balk at the price tag once it’s quoted. Bridging that gap between stated preference and actual willingness to pay is, in Hoban’s words, one of the industry’s real jobs right now.
VALUE VALUT
Five Facts About K&P
$750M+
K&P has raised more than $750 million in private equity funding for large-scale mixed-use, sustainability-based land developments and retail acquisitions throughout the Southeastern United States.
73,000 Acres
In 2006, K&P sold 73,000 of the future Babcock Ranch’s 91,000 acres to the State of Florida to create a permanent wildlife ecosystem and natural land preserve.
21,500 Units
K&P’s development portfolio includes 21,500 residential units, 6.8 million square feet of commercial space, and 1.5 million square feet of retail shopping centers.
No. 3 Nationally
Babcock Ranch became the nation’s third-most-selling master-planned community in mid-2026.
Community Investment
K&P supports organizations including Habitat for Humanity, the American Cancer Society, the Everglades Foundation, and the Salvation Army.
Of the Seven Pillars of Value Per Square Foot that Green Builder Media tracks, Decarbonization is the one K&P has struggled with most. Babcock Ranch’s infrastructure runs heavily on concrete, which isn’t an especially carbon-friendly material, and there’s no commercial scale alternative yet that works at the size a town like this requires. Most home builders on site also use Concrete Masonry Unit (CMU) construction for similar reasons. Hoban is optimistic that better materials will emerge over the next five to 10 years, but for now he’s candid that this is the pillar where K&P has the least to show.
What Hoban is proud of is more concrete, literally and figuratively: The A-rated charter school. Babcock Ranch’s climb to a top three ranking nationally in home sales by mid-2026, up from fourth place at the end of 2025. And the Innovation Neighborhood, a roughly 250 home pilot community that grew out of two innovation workshops K&P hosted with its builder partners. The first workshop produced Innovation Way, a nine-home test street built by Lennar, D.R. Horton, and Pulte using new products, materials, and building systems. The second pushed the idea further, and K&P is now close to finalizing a site plan for the full neighborhood.
When it comes to shifting the whole industry toward value per square foot, Hoban thinks the real work is alignment across a long list of stakeholders, municipalities, developers, builders, architects, engineers, lenders, and buyers, few of whom have historically talked to each other very well. His model at Babcock Ranch has been to pair a bold vision with the right outside partners rather than try to do everything in house.
K&P doesn’t run a power company, so it brought in Florida Power and Light. It doesn’t run a hospital system, so it partnered with Lee Health. It doesn’t lay fiber, so it worked with what’s now known as AT&T. “It takes leadership,” Hoban says. “It takes alignment of interest.” He’s candid that the industry is currently undersupplied and under real financial pressure, which he thinks is part of what’s forcing innovation to move faster than expected. “It’s a pretty interesting time to be in this business,” he says. “I’m excited to see where it can take us.”
Case Study: Kitson & Partners
Florida’s premier residential developer showcases its environmental efforts via its crown jewel, Babcock Ranch.
Tom Hoban doesn’t build homes. As president and chief investment officer of Kitson & Partners (K&P), he builds towns, and that distinction shapes almost everything about how he thinks about value per square foot.
“We’re not a home builder, we’re a developer,” Hoban says. “What we’re really selling, if you will, is the community, the place.” At Babcock Ranch, an 18,000-acre solar-powered town that K&P founder Syd Kitson began developing east of Fort Myers, Florida, in 2006, that means the value conversation starts long before anyone picks out a floor plan. It starts with why someone would want to live there at all.
Hoban’s pitch centers on peace of mind, a phrase he returns to repeatedly. Babcock Ranch was designed from the ground up to handle Southwest Florida’s punishing storm season, and the town has the track record to prove it. When Hurricane Ian tore through the region in 2022, Babcock Ranch didn’t lose power. It didn’t flood. It never issued a boil water notice.
VALUE VAULT
Inside Babcock Ranch
“There’s a much higher likelihood you will not lose your power at Babcock Ranch in the event of a storm,” Hoban says, pointing to the 150 megawatt solar partnership with Florida Power and Light, an elevated substation, buried and hardened transmission lines, and a stormwater system built around the property’s natural, century old water flow patterns rather than fighting them.
That resilience infrastructure isn’t something most buyers see when they tour a model home, but Hoban thinks it’s part of why the town’s health and wellness pitch lands so well. K&P pulled data from the American Home Study, in which roughly 16,000 buyers were surveyed over eight years, and found health and wellness ranked among the top three priorities nationally, regardless of who was buying.
Babcock Ranch backs that up with more than 100 miles of hiking and biking trails, wide sidewalks and bike lanes, heavy shade cover, strong street lighting, fiber connectivity to every home for telehealth and remote work, and an A-rated K-12 charter school on site.
Hoban is careful to separate his developer’s view from what the actual homebuilders at Babcock Ranch do. K&P requires every builder in the community to hit at least a Florida Green Building Coalition bronze certification, on top of Southwest Florida’s already strict building codes. The town itself carries a community-wide FGBC certification for its infrastructure. K&P is also weighing a Fortified neighborhood pilot to see whether it moves the needle on insurance access and pricing for homeowners, something Hoban says the team is close to but not quite ready to launch.
Ask Hoban whether the housing industry is ready to shift from price per square foot to value per square foot, and he doesn’t hesitate. “I think we’re moving there,” he says, though he’s quick to admit that real estate and construction aren’t exactly known for moving fast.
What’s changed, in his view, is that buyers are asking louder and more specifically for high-performance features than they used to. The catch, and it’s one he’s seen play out repeatedly, is that buyers don’t always want to pay for what they say they want.
He points to solar as the textbook example. People tell surveyors they want renewable energy, then balk at the price tag once it’s quoted. Bridging that gap between stated preference and actual willingness to pay is, in Hoban’s words, one of the industry’s real jobs right now.
Five Facts About K&P
Of the Seven Pillars of Value Per Square Foot that Green Builder Media tracks, Decarbonization is the one K&P has struggled with most. Babcock Ranch’s infrastructure runs heavily on concrete, which isn’t an especially carbon-friendly material, and there’s no commercial scale alternative yet that works at the size a town like this requires. Most home builders on site also use Concrete Masonry Unit (CMU) construction for similar reasons. Hoban is optimistic that better materials will emerge over the next five to 10 years, but for now he’s candid that this is the pillar where K&P has the least to show.
What Hoban is proud of is more concrete, literally and figuratively: The A-rated charter school. Babcock Ranch’s climb to a top three ranking nationally in home sales by mid-2026, up from fourth place at the end of 2025. And the Innovation Neighborhood, a roughly 250 home pilot community that grew out of two innovation workshops K&P hosted with its builder partners. The first workshop produced Innovation Way, a nine-home test street built by Lennar, D.R. Horton, and Pulte using new products, materials, and building systems. The second pushed the idea further, and K&P is now close to finalizing a site plan for the full neighborhood.
When it comes to shifting the whole industry toward value per square foot, Hoban thinks the real work is alignment across a long list of stakeholders, municipalities, developers, builders, architects, engineers, lenders, and buyers, few of whom have historically talked to each other very well. His model at Babcock Ranch has been to pair a bold vision with the right outside partners rather than try to do everything in house.
K&P doesn’t run a power company, so it brought in Florida Power and Light. It doesn’t run a hospital system, so it partnered with Lee Health. It doesn’t lay fiber, so it worked with what’s now known as AT&T. “It takes leadership,” Hoban says. “It takes alignment of interest.” He’s candid that the industry is currently undersupplied and under real financial pressure, which he thinks is part of what’s forcing innovation to move faster than expected. “It’s a pretty interesting time to be in this business,” he says. “I’m excited to see where it can take us.”
By Amanda Ingle