Winter Park-based multifamily developer Atlantic Housing Partners recently paid $2.74 million for 18.5 acres in east Orange County, where it plans to build a 238-unit apartment complex.
A company affiliate purchased the property on North Chickasaw Trail from Chickasaw Property LLC on April 13, according to a deed recorded Monday in Orange County. Chickasaw Property is led by Kenneth M. Clayton, Mark A. Clayton and Craig H. Clayton.
Atlantic Housing has been planning a Class A garden-style development at the site since last year, when the developer and land owners received county approval in October to modify the Future Land Use Map for multifamily and residential uses.
The property, part of the Expressway Center Planned Development, had been zoned for office buildings.
The proposed development, north of the East-West Expressway (S.R. 408), is one of several multifamily projects proposed in the last year around the Valencia College East Campus.
Dubbed “Vista Pines Apartments” in plans previously filed with the county, the development will also benefit from its proximity to Florida Hospital’s nearby east campus and the expressway, said Trevor Hall, managing director of Colliers International in Orlando, who represented the Claytons.
“The site has benefited significantly from the two ramps the Central Florida Expressway Authority built from the east and the west,” he told GrowthSpotter on Tuesday. “You can leave this site and be downtown in six or seven minutes.”
Hall said the property is the last piece of the Expressway Center PD created in 1972. It was the first planned development approved in Orange County, he added.
Atlantic Housing Partners was founded in 2006 by several former executives of The CED Companies, and specializes in building affordable apartments with the help of government-backed, low-interest loans and housing finance tax credits.
Those include Lexington Court in Downtown Orlando, and the planned 256-unit mixed-income housing and commercial “Amelia Court” project in Creative Village.
Executives with the company did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
“Atlantic Housing typically is 98 percent occupied in their portfolio,” Hall said. “It’s a good value for the renter.”
The project was delayed for several months because of concerns raised by county traffic and planning and zoning departments. One of the concerns was about traffic and access to the site.
Hall said the developers agreed to address the problem by putting a traffic signal at the northwest corner of the property. A development plan filed in November shows a 3-acre commercial outparcel at that corner.
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