Developer wants Osceola hotel for housing conversion
A California developer is eyeing the Ramada by Wyndham Kissimmee Gateway on the W192 tourism corridor for another residential conversion.
Steven Glaude, acquisitions manager for Servio Capital, had a pre-application meeting in late December with Osceola County’s Development Review Committee to discuss the project. He told them the developer is looking to do a one-to-one room-toapartment conversion with an emphasis on workforce housing.
“I’m a syndicator,” Glaude said. “I basically focus on identifying opportunities that will benefit not only our investors but the city as well. We typically look at hotels that are a little more on the aged side, and this is a good opportunity to kind of clean up the area and bring some very nice efficiency studios to the marketplace.”
The property sits on nearly 9 acres just east of Old Lake Wilson Road. It’s sandwiched between the Super Walmart and Maingate Village, a former Red Lion hotel that was converted into apartments by T2 Capital Management.
The 331,353-square-foot Ramada was built in 1973 and 1974 and consists of an eight-story tower attached to the main lobby and several two-story, exterior corridor motel buildings situated around two courtyards, each with a pool.
DRC Chairman Jose Gomez said the first step would be to apply for rezoning to Commercial Tourist, which takes about 90 days. “We don’t anticipate any issues with the rezoning because it’s consistent with the land use,” he said.
Osceola County’s ordinance regulating motel conversions requires that 75% of the front facade of the building be non-residential. Senior Development Coordinator Jane Adams said if the team opens a cafe on the ground floor of the building, that would likely satisfy the code requirement.
Glaude said his team just wrapped up a project in the Baymeadows area of Jacksonville that involved the conversion of three motels with a combined 341 keys.
2 Orlando apartment projects proposed
Miami-based Royal Palm Companies is kicking off 2023 with two new multifamily projects planned for opposite sides of Orlando — one near Valencia College and UCF’s main campus and another along Boggy
Creek Road at the Osceola County line.
Kamil Salame, a managing partner with RPC, is named in a trio of rezoning applications submitted to Orange County on Dec. 30 with requests to change the land use for a total of 75.3 acres.
The majority of that acreage is located south of East Colonial Drive, between Econlockhatchee Trail and Dean Road where Royal Palm is seeking approval to build as many as 600 apartment dwelling units. If approved, the project would use land currently occupied by the 62-unit Lake Downey Mobile Home Park owned by Chaines Land Trust. It will also use a 44.5- acre tract that stretches to both sides of the Little Econlockhatchee River, according to application materials filed by Kimley-Horn.
This parcel, just north of Valencia College’s east campus, is owned by Pique Land Trust and the family of Sima Jain, a local doctor.
The other rezoning request lodged by RPC involves land on the opposite side of Orange County, at its southern boundary.
The company is eyeing 17.7 acres on the north side of Simpson Road, just west of Boggy Creek Road, for a 360-unit apartment community. One of four parcels has a church called Centro Cristiano Genesis and is owned by an entity titled Genesis Christian Center of Orlando. The other parcels, owned by Ralph Jeudy and Mary Wicker, are undeveloped.
Royal Palm is under contract to acquire the parcels, according to county records.
Royal Palm’s multifamily proposal along Boggy Creek Road joins a host of other apartment projects underway on this busy corridor.
All told, 315,000 square feet of commercial space and more than 2,000 apartment units are in the development pipeline for an area less than a mile south of Lake Nona, the 40th best-selling master-planned community in the nation, according to RCLCO Real Estate Consulting.
To the east of the property eyed by Royal Palm, Atlanta-based Watkins Real Estate Group is building out its 310-unit The Landings at Boggy Creek. The upscale apartment community is expected to open by the summer of 2023, according to its website.