Ground-breaking on Town Center's first phase is tentatively scheduled for fall. Altamonte Springs is seven miles north of Downtown Orlando.
Vlass couldn't be reached at GlobeSt.com publication deadline but area brokers following the project tell GlobeSt.com the developer will be naming a theater anchor and a design/development/leasing consulting team by May 1 or sooner.
The Town Center is the most ambitious commercial/retail/residential undertaking the Orlando suburb has attempted in 25 years.No money changed hands in the three-way deal.
Vlass, managing principal of the Town Center's development company, Altamonte Springs Investments LLC, and the city are offering the hotel covered parking for guests and shared signage at three separate sites within the project.
In return, the hotel is giving the developer and the city access to land needed for the construction of a 10-story, 2,000-space parking garage adjacent to the hotel. In a prepared statement, Embassy Suites general manager Dennis Hale says the deal makes the hotel "one of the cornerstones" of the Town Center.
Vlass and Hale also agreed on the realignment of Shorecrest Drive to a location on Cranes Roost Boulevard, between the existing roadway alignment and State Road 436. The new roadway will be the main access to the hotel, through the center of the development.
Hale is confident the development will boost sales and generate new activity in the $200 million Cranes Roost Park commercial/entertainment/recreational undertaking the city and private investors created five years ago from distressed real estate behind the 1.4-million-sf Altamonte Mall.
Town Center initial plans call for a 3,500-seat, stadium-styled outdoor theater; parking garage; and an undetermined amount of office, hotel, retail, restaurant and residential development. First-phase completion is tentatively anticipated by fourth quarter 2003. The total buildout period is 10 years.
Vlass is part of an investment team comprised of Atlanta Station developer James F. Jacoby and former Church Street Station development consultant Chad Martin of Orlando. The partnership purchased the orphaned 14.5-acre, 30-year-old North Lake Plaza Shopping Center in suburban Altamonte Springs three weeks ago for $5 million or $344,828 per acre ($7.91 per sf) from New York-based Morgan Stanley.
The developers will be buying another 9.5 acres from the city of Altamonte Springs at possibly the same per-acre price, area brokers tell GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity.
If purchased at the same $7.91 per-sf 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 Altamonte Mall. The property lies 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.
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