ORLANDO-Before he could sell the dirt, however, Jay Ballard of the Apartment Group of Florida had to convince county, state and federal agencies to rezone the 20-acre site and approve a 254-unit student apartment venture near the University of Central Florida. It took the broker two years to do the deal.

MIAMI-Urban Investment Advisors, the Washington, DC-based development arm of Greenwich, CT-based Starwood Urban Group, has started construction on a $57 million redevelopment venture in Downtown Coral Gables, FL, eight miles south of Downtown Miami. Completion is scheduled for June 2003.

MIAMI-The managing director of the Atlanta-based firm's Miami office posted a combined 325,000 sf of leased volume valued at $70 million in 2001. In 2000, Gale did the largest Downtown lease with Bank of America for 88,000 sf and trumped that performance in 2001 with Holland & Knight taking 108,000 sf.

MIAMI-Chicago-based Equity Residential Property Trust, the largest multifamily property owner in the United States, paid MIG Realty Advisors of West Palm Beach $70,652 per unit or $74 per sf for the 23-building, 368-unit Isles at Sawgrass apartments in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Sunrise, FL. The site is 25 miles north of Downtown Miami.

ORLANDO-The Dallas-based builder formally opened its first two models Thursday at the 70-unit Park Maitland Villas in suburban Orlando, seven miles from Downtown. Strong demand is moving Centex to start selling units at a planned second similar venture in May.

ATLANTA-The fifth annual Asia Pacific Hotel Industry Investment Conference selected the Six Continents Hotel executive for his ongoing pioneeering hotel development concepts in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.

ORLANDO-The vacant parcel in Panama City, FL went to Birmingham, AL-based Edgewater Beach Properties LLC for $1.12 million or $41,413 per acre (95 cents per sf). St. Joe starts auctioning 15,000 acres of timberland next week.

ORLANDO-Former Days Inn Hotel owners/operators Monty O. Hundley, 58, of Orlando and Stanley S. Tollman, 71, of Palm Beach, FL are among five defendants named in a New York federal grand jury indictment alleging the investors duped the former Chemical Bank (now part of J.P. Morgan Chase Bank) and National Westminster Bank, all of New York.