What Is an Agrihood? Orlando’s First One Is Open — And It’s Worth Understanding

You may have seen the word “agrihood” floating around real estate circles lately without a clean explanation of what it actually means. It’s not a marketing phrase for a community with a vegetable garden near the dog park. It’s a specific development concept — and until very recently, Central Florida didn’t have one.

That changed in early 2026 when PulteGroup broke ground on The Grow, a 1,200-acre master-planned community in northeast Orange County built around a 9-acre working farm. It’s the first agrihood in Orlando, and Pulte’s first agrihood community anywhere in the country. Sales opened this spring, and it’s only just starting to get attention outside of new construction circles. This post is an attempt to fill that gap.

What Is an Agrihood, Exactly?

The Urban Land Institute defines an agrihood as a “single-family, multifamily, or mixed-use community built with a working farm or community garden as a focus.” The key word is “focus” — the farm isn’t an amenity bolted onto a standard subdivision. It’s the organizing concept the entire community is built around.

The concept has been growing nationally for about a decade. Agritopia in Gilbert, Arizona, is the most widely cited example — a community built around a working organic farm where residents can buy produce from the farm stand, eat at an on-site restaurant, and live in homes that face garden plots rather than streets. Prairie Crossing in Grayslake, Illinois, is another, built around 100 acres of protected farmland. According to the Urban Land Institute, there are now over 200 agrihoods across at least 30 states. The concept is real, it has staying power, and it tends to hold value well because it creates a genuinely differentiated community identity that most subdivisions can’t replicate after the fact.

What an agrihood is not: a community where someone planted raised beds near the mailboxes and called it farm-to-table living. At a real agrihood, the farm is professionally operated. Residents don’t have to grow anything — they benefit from the yields, the community programming, and the greenspace that a working agricultural operation creates around it. That distinction matters when you’re evaluating whether The Grow is the real thing or just a developer buzzword.

It’s the real thing.

The Basics: Size, Location, and What’s Being Built

The Grow sits on approximately 1,200 acres between Lake Pickett Road and State Road 50 (East Colonial Drive) in northeast Orange County, with convenient SR-408 access. That puts it squarely in the UCF and Central Florida Research Park corridor, roughly 20 minutes from Orlando International Airport and about 45 minutes from the Space Coast.

When complete, the community will include:

• Approximately 2,200 homes in a mix of townhomes, bungalows, and single-family detached homes
• A 9-acre working farm with barns, a farm stand, and event spaces
• 21 acres of community gardens and orchards
• A 20-acre community park
• 12 miles of recreational trails
• An equestrian facility
• A farm-to-table restaurant and welcome center
• Farmers’ market street
• Over 165,000 square feet of commercial space
• More than 200 acres of preserved wetlands and greenspace (roughly 60% of the total site)
• An elementary school campus with integrated agricultural education

The first phase is already underway, with 504 lots, the working farm infrastructure, two barns, and the farm stand all included in the initial buildout. Sales opened in spring 2026.

Home Types and Pricing

Pulte is offering three main product lines at The Grow, each designed to fit the farmhouse aesthetic of the broader community:

• The Aurora Series — professionally curated townhomes priced from the low $400s, with floor plans ranging from approximately 1,553 to 1,770 square feet
• The Ember Series — bungalow-style homes on 34-foot homesites, also from the mid-$400s
• Larger single-family homes on lots ranging from standard-width up to half an acre, with homes spanning 1,600 to over 4,200 square feet

Architecture throughout is vintage farmhouse in character — board-and-batten siding, metal roof accents, front porches, and the kind of detailing that tends to photograph well and hold up over time. It’s a departure from the stucco-and-tile aesthetic that dominates most of the Orlando market.

Who Is The Grow Built For?

The buyer profile at The Grow skews toward people who are drawn to the lifestyle concept more than a specific price point. Based on what Pulte has said publicly and what the site plan reveals, a few groups stand out:

• Families who want outdoor access, trail connectivity, and an agricultural education component for their kids built directly into the school campus next door
• UCF faculty, researchers, and employees at the Central Florida Research Park, for whom the location eliminates a commute problem entirely
• Buyers relocating from out of state who are specifically seeking something that doesn’t look or feel like a standard Florida subdivision
• Active adults and empty nesters who want walkability, green space, and a community built around health and sustainability rather than a golf course

What a Buyer’s Agent Actually Does at The Grow

Here’s a point worth making clearly: when you buy new construction at a Pulte community, the builder’s sales team represents Pulte. That’s their job. They’re excellent at it, and they know the product inside out. But they don’t represent your interests, negotiate on your behalf, or advise you on how a lot position, elevation premium, or upgrade package will affect your resale value down the road.

A buyer’s agent doesn’t add to your purchase price at The Grow. Pulte builds representation fees into their pricing model the same way every major national builder does. What you gain is someone in your corner during the contract review, the design center visit, and the pre-closing walkthrough — which is not a small thing on a new construction purchase.

We’ve covered the new construction agent question in more depth over on the Lofty side: will the builder give you a discount if you skip your agent? If you’re considering The Grow and want someone to walk through the process with you before you step into that sales center, schedule a no-pressure conversation here.

The Honest Caveats

No community is worth writing about if you’re not willing to say what it isn’t. A few things worth knowing before you make a trip out to the sales center:

• Orange County schools: The Grow is in Orange County, not Seminole County. Families who are prioritizing Seminole County Public Schools — Florida’s top-ranked district — should understand that this location zones to Orange County. OCPS is a large, capable district, and the on-site elementary school with agricultural programming is genuinely interesting — but it’s a different school system than Oviedo or Winter Springs.
• It’s still early: Phase one is just getting started. The farm-to-table restaurant, the full trail network, and the commercial amenities are years from completion. You’re buying into a vision and a construction timeline, not a finished community.
• SR-50 traffic: East Colonial is a real commute corridor. Access to I-408 helps, but this part of east Orange County has traffic patterns that reward early familiarity. Drive the route at rush hour before you commit.
• HOA structure is still forming: A community of this scope will have a homeowners association, and the fee structure, rules, and management details will matter over time. Confirm these details directly with the Pulte sales team before signing.

The Bottom Line

The Grow is genuinely different from anything else being built in the Orlando market right now. A 9-acre working farm at the center of a 1,200-acre master-planned community, 200 acres of preserved greenspace, 12 miles of trails, an integrated agricultural school curriculum, and farmhouse architecture throughout — that’s not a marketing brochure concept. That’s a real development thesis, and it’s being executed by one of the largest homebuilders in the country.

Whether it’s the right fit depends on what you’re actually optimizing for. If school district ranking is your primary variable, do your homework on OCPS zoning. If you want something with a distinctive lifestyle concept, proximity to UCF and the Research Park, and a community that’s being built around outdoor living and agricultural connection, The Grow is worth a serious look.

Explore current homes for sale in the east Orlando corridor, or take a read through our guide to the broader east Orlando area for more context on how The Grow fits into the larger map.