Although virtually all of the church’s holdings remain in rural and agricultural uses, the church has plans approved by Osceola County for future development of a 19,000-acre section of the Deseret Ranches located 10 miles from Orlando International Airport. The area is near the route of the All Aboard Florida privately funded train between Orlando and Miami planned for a 2015 launch.

The Mormon church is poised to become the largest private landowner in Florida as a result of a deal to buy nearly 400,000 acres in the state’s Panhandle region.

The property is mostly timberland, and the church “intends to maintain timber and agricultural uses of the lands,” according to a statement released by St. Joe Company, a Florida real estate firm.

The signed sales agreement with the church’s company, AgReserves Inc., for $565 million is subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals, according to the statement. The company expects the deal to be finalized in the first quarter of 2014.

Paul Genho, chairman of AgReserves, Inc., in St. Joe’s statement, described the entity as a “tax-paying affiliate of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” also known as the Mormon church.

The Mormon church was already one of Florida’s largest landowners. For more than 60 years, the church has owned Deseret Ranches, a 290,000 cattle and citrus operation straddling three counties in Central Florida, approximately 50 miles southeast of downtown Orlando.

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