CELEBRATION, FL-Lexin Capital, a New York-based private investment firm that is no stranger to Disney-area real estate, has set a Central Florida per-unit-price record with its $84-million acquisition of the two-year-old Mirasol at Celebration.

Lexin paid GDC Properties Inc. of Hawthorne, NY $401,914 per unit for the 209-unit, 100%-leased apartment community at 501 Mirasol Circle in Downtown Celebration. The Osceola County city of 10,000 residents was created by Disney Development Co. in 1994. Celebration, at US 192 and Interstate 4, is 20 miles south of Downtown Orlando.

Robert W. Miller, senior vice president, Florida Multi-Housing Group in the Orlando office of CB Richard Ellis Inc., tells GlobeSt.com the highest per-unit price previously paid for a multifamily asset in metro Orlando was $187,000, or a total $56.84 million, last year for the 304-unit Park Terrace Apartments at 7400 Sugar Bend Dr., Orlando. That property, too, is being converted to residential condominiums."

CB Richard Ellis Inc. research shows the highest per-unit-price paid for an apartment asset this year to date was $103,393.

For GDC, the Mirasol sale comes at a time when the developer is following a previously laid-out strategy of raising funds for new acquisitions in Florida, Georgia and New York, Orlando brokers familiar with the company's progress tell GlobeSt.com.

GDC built Mirasol at an estimated hard construction cost of $42 million or about $200,000 per unit, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. The developer purchased the three-acre site for $2.78 million or about $926,666 per acre ($21.27 per sf), according to GlobeSt.com research. The price equates to a land cost of $13,301 per apartment.

For Lexin, the Mirasol acquisition is the company's third in Celebration. Lexin paid Celebration Co., the real estate division of Walt Disney World, $24 million, or $87.91 per sf, for the 273,000-sf Town Center and three prime parcels totaling 6.8 acres of undeveloped land, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. Lexin also bought the Centergate at Celebration apartment community in 2004 and renamed the property, Siena.

Lexin Capital is headed by Metin Negrin, who couldn't be reached for comment by GlobeSt.com's publication deadline for this article.