New York-based real estate investment trust Seritage Growth Properties has a mixed-use redevelopment vision for its 17.98-acre Sears-anchored parcel at Orlando Fashion Square Mall, filing a new master plan with the City of Orlando that details dining and retail outparcels, and a multifamily second phase on the property’s rear.
Seritage said in a second quarter earnings report that it would be closing the Sears in mid-November and Sears Auto Center in mid-October, with plans to demolish the department store and build neighboring Orchard Supply Hardware and Floor & Decor stores, the Orlando Sentinel reported on Aug. 9.
Seritage had not revealed since then what its plans were for the rest of the property. But on Sept. 13, the company filed a Framework Master Plan (FMP) with the city for the entire 17.98-acre Sears parcel’s redevelopment through two phases, with a Specific Parcel Master Plan (SPMP) for Phase 1 retail on the front 13.01 acres of the site.
Minnesota-based developer Oppidan Investment Company is leading the Phase 1 redevelopment on behalf of Seritage, a relationship formed in part because it’s the national contracted developer for Orchard Supply Hardware.
Executives with Seritage and Oppidan did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
Located on the northeast corner of Maguire Boulevard and E. Colonial Drive in Downtown Orlando, the new plans show Phase 1 includes the new Floor & Decor (68,650 square feet), Orchard Supply Hardware (34,440 SF), and four restaurant pads along the road frontage (ranging from 3,942-6,557 SF).
The existing Sears Auto Center building on the property’s hard corner will be refurbished as a retail and restaurant strip (20,066 SF). Placeholder names on three-dimensional renderings of the buildings don’t appear to reflect future tenants.
Marketing for the retail and dining space recently started by leasing agent John Artope of SRS Real Estate. Seritage is casting a wide net at this point for interested users, with a development timeline still to be determined based on the pace of pre-leasing, he said on Wednesday.
In Phase 2, a multifamily residential building will be added to the west of the mall’s parking garage with up to 133 apartments, on what is currently 4.97 acres of surface parking. The timeframe for starting Phase 2 was not indicated on filed documents.
That maximum apartment number was reached by calcuating the existing site’s 194,062 square feet of shopping area, subtracting the 144,193 square feet to be redeveloped in Phase 1, and converting the remaining 49,869 square feet to apartments under the Fashion Square Mall’s DRI conversion matrix from 2014.
That would be the second apartment development on or near Fashion Square property, following Trammell Crow Residential’s 356-unit Alexan at Audubon project set for 15 acres on the old Anthem College site, north of the mall. Construction could start on those apartments by December.
Civil engineer on the master plan is Kimley-Horn, Dix.Hite + Partners is the landscape architect, KTGY is the planner and Charlan Brock and Associates is the architect.
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