Hundreds more apartments slated for downtown area

Another 867 apartments could be added to downtown property across from the Orange County Courthouse on North Orange Avenue in coming years under new plans filed by a development group.

The Property Markets Group, with offices in Miami and New York, has proposed plans for a trio of towers to be built in three phases overlooking the courthouse to the east and the central transit station to the west. As proposed, the project would include 1,374 parking spaces when completed, records show.

With a working name of X Orlando or Golden Sparrow, the proposal if approved would continue a trend of transitioning downtown Orlando with more residences than new offices. In recent years, more than 1,200 new apartments have been added to the downtown area while one new office tower at Church Street is underway, supported by a hotel on lower levels.

The project proposal, first reported by GrowthSpotter, would trend to smaller units with 252 one-bedroom units cited on planning documents. Latter phases could see as many as 216 units with four bedrooms, initial plans show.

The initial tower is slated to rise 227 feet while the next two would be about 90 feet higher than that.

An affiliate of the group Midtown Properties bought the 3.57-acre vacant property for $10 million in 2015 from a Texasbased investment group. The Midtown group is affiliated with Miami investor Alex Vadia, who bought 19 acres nearby for $35 million in 2016. That property is leased by the Orlando Sentinel.

Plans for the PMG project have been filed with the city for approval on the site that is next to new Central Station on Orange apartments. Records filed with the city show XCS Acquisitions working on the project in conjunction with Kimley-Horn engineering and planning group.