Growth & Development Committee
In a community growing as quickly as Lakewood Ranch, the most consequential conversations are often the ones held before the ribbon cuttings, grand openings, and crowded calendars of public events.
By Edit Sarasota Staff
In a community growing as quickly as Lakewood Ranch, the most consequential conversations are often the ones held before the ribbon cuttings, grand openings, and crowded calendars of public events. Behind that visible momentum is a quieter network of business owners, civic-minded professionals, and community advocates working to determine what comes next—and who will help shape it.
The Growth & Development Committee of the Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance occupies that connective space. Its work is centered on membership growth, but the deeper mission is relationship-building: introducing prospective businesses to the Alliance, articulating the value of participation, and creating the kind of sustained connections that make a business community feel less like a directory and more like a neighborhood.
That distinction matters in a region where development is not merely a matter of new buildings. As Lakewood Ranch expands, its economic identity is being formed by the people who open shops, operate professional practices, launch services, employ local residents, and invest time in the civic fabric around them. The Alliance provides a forum for those voices to meet, exchange ideas, and find practical support. The Growth & Development Committee helps ensure that the conversation continues to widen as the community itself does.
The committee meets for one to two hours each month, making its commitment modest in duration but potentially significant in reach. Under the leadership of chair Ashlyn McCarty, members focus on outreach and engagement—work that requires curiosity, a welcoming manner, and an understanding that a new member is not simply an addition to an organization, but a new relationship within the region’s business ecosystem.
Held at the Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance, the meeting also reflects the Alliance’s role as a gathering place for local enterprise. In a landscape often measured by expansion statistics, this kind of committee offers a more human scale: one conversation, one introduction, one shared explanation of how participation can strengthen both an individual business and the wider community.
The next Growth & Development Committee meeting takes place Wednesday, November 4, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. at the Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance, 5391 Lakewood Ranch Blvd N. Meetings are open to Alliance members only. For more information, contact Ashlyn McCarty at AMcCarty@buffalolodging.com.