Babcock Ranch, an 18,000-acre community rising from cattle land and wildlife habitat, welcomed its first residents in January 2018. The population has since swelled to nearly 400, including the ...

Babcock Ranch was designed to accommodate Florida's climate and ecosystems with indigenous plants and natural waterways for drainage; it was built 25 to 30 feet above sea level to help mitigate ...

Babcock Ranch is powered with the help of nearly 700,000 solar panels, which can create enough clean energy to power nearly 30,000 homes. Kitson said Hurricane Ian's winds didn't dislodge a single ...

A model home was opened at Babcock Ranch, pictured here in March 2017; the first residents moved into the new town the following year. Inset, An aerial view of Sanibel, Florida, taken on October 8; ...

But Babcock Ranch, north of Fort Myers, was designed and built to withstand the most powerful storms. National. One Florida community built to weather hurricanes endured Ian with barely a scratch.

On a color-coded south Florida map showing what's on the vast Babcock Ranch straddling Charlotte and Lee counties, large chunks of the land show up in blue -- for water. Some of it snakes through t… ...

Babcock Ranch, a planned community of roughly 2,000 that bills itself as "America's first solar-powered town," skated through the storm without power loss or significant damage, CNN reported.

In 2006, he purchased the Babcock Preserve from the Babcock family and almost immediately sold 73,000 acres -- 80 percent of the land -- back to the state to retain its nature preservation status.