Mosaic, the last phosphate company in Polk and a major player in Southwest Florida, plans to build a luxury resort on more than 16,000 acres of reclaimed mine land west of Fort Meade.

The resort project signals a major turning point toward greater development of Mosaic’s land for recreational, commercial and residential uses, said Parker Keen, the company’s assistant vice president for land management.

While the U.S. economy today is not supporting many new developments of this scope, the company projects that will change by the time the resort opens, perhaps as early as 2013, he said.

“You want to open a facility in an emerging market. We want to be the newest and best thing to emerge when the market reopens,” Keen said.

Phosphate industry observers have wondered for many years why the companies have done little to take advantage of the profit potential in developing its properties.

“People never thought that area of the county would be developed,” said Mark Jackson, director of tourism and sports marketing for the Central Florida Development Council in Bartow. “At the very least, it’s an economic stimulus in that part of the county.”

While Polk has many developments on former phosphate lands, such as Oakbridge, Bridgewater and Christina in Lakeland and Imperia Lakes near Mulberry, those were created after the mining companies sold the lands to private developers. The Mosaic resort would be developed and owned by the company.

The resort project remains in the planning stage and changes almost daily, but Keen estimated the resort would represent a $50 million to $80 million investment in the community.

Not all of that investment might come out of Mosaic’s wallet, said Dave Townsend, Mosaic’s director of public affairs. The company is looking for investment partners as well as a management company that would handle day-to-day operations.

The project would create 250 to 280 full-time jobs, Keen said.

Mosaic has not publicized the resort development until now because it was more a plan than a reality, company officials said. While the resort still needs approval from county and state officials, the company feels confident enough about its business plan to discuss it publicly, they said. If approved, Mosaic hopes to open it by 2013.

The resort would sit on 16,535 acres with the Polk-Hardee county line to the south, Fort Green Road to the West, State Road 630 West along most of its northern perimeter and District Line Road to the east.

The Ledger in Lakeland is part of the New York Times Regional Media Group.