Monday, April 24, 2006

$180M Mixed-Use Project Planned for Downtown Orlando



 
 
$180M Mixed-Use Project Planned for Downtown Orlando

April 21, 2006
By Hortense Leon, Southeast Correspondent


With 1000 North Orange--one of the largest developments planned for downtown Orlando, a city in the midst of a development boom--approved by the city's municipal planning board earlier this week, it is now expected to go before the Orlando city council on May 15th. The $180 million, 42-story mixed-use development will feature 650 luxury condominiums, 67,500 square feet of office space and 13,000 square feet of retail. It is being developed by the Hallandale, Fla.-based Mayan Group.

Haim Mayan, Mayan Group's CEO, says he chose Orlando for the project because the South Florida market, and especially Miami, is too crowded (although he himself is developing an 150-unit condominium project in Broward County's Dania Beach, just north of Miami). He also has a contract on another Orlando site for later development; that site is on International Drive, he acknowledged, although he did not elaborate on his plans for it.

The current Orlando development boom is different from the boom going on in many other cities today, observed Naeem Coleman, economic development coordinator for the Orlando Downtown Development Board. It includes not only residential condominiums but more than 2 million square feet of office space and 700,000 square feet of retail either proposed or under construction within the 1,600-acre area for which the development board is responsible, at least with regard to promoting development. That is in addition to the 7,000 residential units that are also in the works in the area, said Coleman.

Mayan said he does not know how the 1000 North Orange project will be financed as of yet. "We may go to a bank or private equity partners," he said.

Before he became a developer, Mayan was a construction contractor for a number of office buildings in New York and Miami. In Orlando, he expects to break ground on the 1000 North Orange development in mid-2007.

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