GlobeSt.com UPDATE: EB Plans $480M Hotel-Condo Resort

The $480-million Eden Springs Resort & Spa at 9200 Turkey Lake Rd., 15 minutes from Walt Disney World, is expected to offer 1,332 residences in six buildings; a 25,000-sf spa in the main building; a ballroom capable of accommodating 1,250 guests; conference center; and an undetermined amount of retail and restaurant space. The developer anticipates the homes will be sold out over a three-year period at an estimated total build-out value of $800 million.

Pre-sales of the project's first phase are scheduled to start in February with prices beginning in the $270,000s, representatives of developer Elie Berdugo tell GlobeSt.com. The first phase comprises the 408-unit Resort Club Building and the 164 units in Spring View Building 6. Phase I Resort Club space ranges from 419 sf to 1,220 sf. Spring View Building 6 ranges from 598 sf to 1,525 sf.

John K. Markey, chief operating officer at EB Developers, tells GlobeSt.com he anticipates "demand will be so high that it will be necessary to limit the volume and speed of saleable inventory at Eden Springs." He says there is "no question that the condo-hotel market in Orlando is in its infancy. The condo-hotel market is and will continue to be deeper than non-insiders realize."

Markey adds, "We will see that the condo-hotel concept continues to evolve and that the developers who add value with vision and attention to the end-user experience will rise to the top." He concedes "that's a statement you could make about all development" but says "it's no less true for the condo-hotel" market.

Berdugo, a former developer of high-rise apartment buildings and single-family homes in Israel, isn't fazed by the rash of hotel-condo projects now surfacing in metro Orlando. "Condominium hotels seem to be springing up around Orlando like theme parks these days, as developers offer ownership opportunities that unite baby boomers' interest in real estate investment with the upscale, dynamic lifestyle they have come to expect," the developer says.

He adds, "Although there are currently more than a dozen of these hybrid projects announced, under construction or already open in Orlando, our firm is intent on stepping up the second-home and vacation home game by melding best-of-breed elements from Florida's early 20th century grand resort hotel tradition with contemporary amenities and services to create Eden Springs Resort & Spa."

His project is planned on a 62-acre tract in southwest Orlando having 1,100 lineal feet of prime frontage on Big Sand Lake, along with a private spring-fed lake. Berdugo stepped up plans for Eden Springs Resort after purchasing the 26-acre, 11-building site of the former Delta Orlando Resort in August 2005, as GlobeSt.com previously reported.

EB Developers paid $28.4 million, or about $1.1 million per acre ($25.26 per sf), for the foreclosed-on property. The seller was CanPartners Investment IV Orlando LLC, an affiliate of Los Angeles-based CanPartners Investments IV LLC. Ronald C. Muzil Jr., a director in Chicago-based Cohen Financial's Boca Raton office who brokered the deal, told GlobeSt.com at that time the per-acre price was "probably the highest paid" in Central Florida for a bulk land purchase.