The developers negotiated a $5 million land deal Thursday with New York-based Morgan Stanley for the 30-year-old, 14.5 acre North Lake Plaza Shopping Center where the planned 24-acre Altamonte Springs Town Center will be built. The site is seven miles north of Downtown Orlando.

Morgan Stanley had asked $8.5 million or $425,000 per acre ($9.76 per sf) in November 2001. Another developer, Guy Scott of Altamonte Springs Development Corp., didn't go through with the deal at that time.

The Jacoby-Vlass-Martin team acquired the dirt for $344,828 per acre or $7.91 per sf. The developers will be buying another 9.5 acres from Altamonte Springs at possibly the same price, area brokers tell GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity. If purchased at the same price, the 9.5-acre deal would come to $3.28 million, for a total land assemblage cost of $8.28 million. That transaction would make the dirt the largest retail deal of the year to date, area brokers tell GlobeSt.com.

The 14.5-acre tract is off State Road 436 (Semoran Boulevard) and west of the 1.3 million-sf regional Altamonte Mall, along the east side of Cranes Roost Boulevard and south of Cranes Roost Park, a hot development hub. The 9.5-acre parcel is on the west side of Cranes Roost Boulevard. The Town Center project would front Cranes Roost Lake and State Road 436.

Town Center would comprise office, hotel, retail, restaurant, a 3,500-seat, stadium-styled outdoor theater, residential and a 2,000-space parking garage. Altamonte Springs plans to contribute about $15 million for the garage construction and land improvements near the project.

The Town Center project will be comparable to the successful $200 million Cranes Roost Park undertaking the city and private investors, headed by Orlando-based Emerson International Inc., created five years ago from distressed properties behind the Altamonte Mall.

The estimated buildout time of Town Center would be 10 years, area construction industry sources tell GlobeSt.com. First-phase completion is tentatively anticipated by fourth quarter 2003, broker sources tell GlobeSt.com. The developers and city officials couldn't be reached at GlobeSt.com's publication deadline to learn if any preleasing has been made.

But Martin says in a prepared statement from the city that interest already is high. "Many of the same quality national and regional tenants that are looking at Atlantic Station (in Atlanta) have expressed interest in Altamonte Springs," the developer says.

Martin handles retail development for the planned $2 billion, 138-acre, 12-million-sf Atlanta mixed-use venture. Jacoby, chairman/founder of 23-year-old Jacoby Development Inc., is spearheading Atlantic Station. He has been in the development business for 29 years and is on the board of directors at the University of Florida's Whitney Laboratory (Marineland) in St. Augustine, FL.

Martin has participated locally in the development of Church Street Station, Pointe Orlando shopping center and Hard Rock Café enterprises.

In the 1980s, Vlass was the original land developer of the existing Quorum Center complex on Vineland Road and 33rd Street in south Orlando. He was also the first private developer to lease land from the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority to develop Orlando Air Cargo Center. Vlass has focused on retail projects over the last 15 years.

Although they have been friends for 15 years, Town Center will be the first joint venture for Vlass and Jacoby.

Instant Insights /

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