Sunvest-Tarragon Buys Lincoln at Delaney Square

The six-story Downtown property consists of five buildings and has an eight-level, 559-space parking garage. The Florida office of Apartment Realty Advisors, based in Boca Raton, brokered the transaction. The property has been renamed the Grande and is already stirring buyer interest.

"Many tenants are ready to buy their units," Kimbra Hennessy, president, Bitner/Hennessy Public Relations in Orlando, tells GlobeSt.com. "The broker activity on the property has been incredible in Downtown Orlando's core." Bittner/Hennessy is assisting in marketing the Grande. Hennessy says the Grande is "regarded as the last possible apartment-to-condo conversion possible" Downtown. "They anticipate a quick sellout."

"The property's Downtown location, high-end unit features and superior community amenities make Lincoln at Delaney Square an ideal candidate for condominium conversion," says Marc deBaptiste, a principal at Apartment Realty Advisors. "New condominium developments are offering primarily two-bedroom and three-bedroom floor plans well into the $200-per-sf-range." The broker adds that Lincoln at Delaney Square's one-bedroom units "will prove to be a highly marketable feature."

Kevin Judd, vice president of Apartment Realty Advisors who co-brokered the transaction, says "construction quality and strong demand for mid-priced condominium units in Greater Orlando fueled significant interest among converters for Lincoln at Delaney." Judd says his firm "expects this trend to continue as the region continues to set the pace for job growth" in Florida.

Lincoln at Delaney is located less than one-quarter miles west of the East/West Expressway (State Road 408) and one quarter mile west of Interstate 4. It took Lincoln Property Co. more than two years to assemble several separately-owned parcels on the 4.3-acre site. Jay Ballard, a multifamily land acquisition specialist at the Apartment Group, assembled the site for Lincoln.

For SunVest, the development marked the second trophy property the converter has acquired in the past 30 days. In Clearwater on the Gulf Coast, Sunvest paid developer Del American Inc. of Altamonte Springs $49 million, or $145,8333 per unit, for the 336-unit Grand Venezia at Bay Watch and $19 million, or $227,097 per unit, for the remaining 86 units at adjacent Grand Bellagio at Bay Watch, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. Sean Williams, a vice president at Apartment Realty Advisors, and deBaptiste put that deal together.

Sunvest, headed by Louis Birdman, has been converting and developing single-family, multifamily and resort communities throughout Florida since 1989.