ORLANDO-Baldwin Park, a 1,093-acre mixed-use community being developed by Chicago's Pritzker family at a development cost of $2 billion, has some new high numbers to throw around today. The development is three miles from Downtown.
Rock Equities of Livonia, MI confirms it plans to break ground in April on the first phase of Baldwin Harbor, a one-million-sf, 495-unit residential condo community being developed at Lake Baldwin. Area construction sources tell GlobeSt.com the estimated cost of the venture will be at least $100 million or about $200,000 per unit.
In a separate activity at Baldwin Park, New York-based Lexin Capital, headed by Metin Negrin, has acquired Centergate Baldwin Park Apartments from Baldwin Park Development Co. for $50 million. The two-year-old, 220-unit property traded hands for $227,272 per unit.
Lexin made news here in 2005 when Negrin's group paid GDC Properties Inc. of Hawthorne, NY, $84 million, or $401,914 per unit, for the two-year-old, 209-unit Mirasol at Celebration apartments in Celebration, 25 miles south of Downtown Orlando in Osceola County. The $401,914-per-unit price stands as the highest-recorded price for a comparable multifamily property in Central and North Florida, according to GlobeSt.com research.
After the purchase, Negrin converted Mirasol to condominiums and is selling the homes at an average $550,000 per home, Osceola County area marketers familiar with the project tell GlobeSt.com. Negrin will also be converting Centergate Baldwin Park to condos and expects to sell the units in a range from under $200,000 to $400,000.
He is renaming the property Enders Place at Baldwin Park, according to sales agents who expect to work on the property's marketing plan. Average prices of single-family homes at Baldwin Park are $400,000, Orlando residential agents tell GlobeSt.com.
Rock Equities partners Steve Rosenthal, Jeff Cohen, Nate Forbes and Dan Gilbert couldn't be reached by GlobeSt.com's publication deadline to learn additional development details on their 10-acre, lakefront Baldwin Harbor project. However, area architects and city planning staffers tell GlobeSt.com the project will have two eight-story buildings. The price of the land hasn't been disclosed.
The first structure will have 260 condos sized from 1,200 sf to 5,071 sf. The second building will have 235 homes across New Broad Street from the first building. Projected home prices will be in the $500,000 to $3-million-per-unit range, area agents who plan to market some of the homes tell GlobeSt.com. The developers have set up a 6,000-sf sales center near the project.
Like Lexin Capital in 2005, the Pritzker family of Chicago made local headlines and generated civic controversy in 1998 when it acquired the most-sought-after tract of land in Central, West and North Florida for what local bankers and industrial brokers maintained at the time was a fire-sale price. Pritzker Realty Co., headed by Penny Pritzker, paid the City of Orlando $5.8 million, or $5,306 per acre (12 cents per sf), for the 1,093-acre Orlando Naval Training Center shut down by the Pentagon in a cost-cutting move in 1997, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. Area industrial brokers intimate with the land and surrounding real estate values say the dirt today could be valued between $300,000 and $500,000 per acre. Baldwin Park sits on that land today.
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