"Blue Head Ranch is flat, parched grassland split in two by a stretch of blacktop called U.S. 70. But this dusty outpost could become one of Central Florida's hottest real estate commodities if a mammoth toll road wins approval by the state. Nearly all of Blue Head Ranch lies within a large swath where a $7 billion expressway could go. The 62,000-acre ranch belongs to a company headed by J.D. Alexander, a powerful state senator from Lake Wales with Florida royalty in his blood.

Alexander has been instrumental in pushing for the road by helping to form a lobbying group stocked with some of the most storied real estate dynasties in Florida. They, too, own thousands of acres along the toll road route.

The road campaign comes at a time when Alexander's businesses, and those of some of his relatives, are shifting from farming and ranching to land development. Their plans could be aided by a fast expressway through half a dozen rural Florida counties. Dubbed the Heartland Parkway, the proposed 152-mile road would run from southwest Florida and could connect to Interstate 4 or the Polk Parkway.

It would redraw the map of an undeveloped region now dominated by ranches and swamps and it would beckon development. History suggests the price of the land along it would skyrocket.