Simply Self Storage has a new site under contract near the tourism corridor on Palm Parkway, which is now the third self-storage facility planned in the past few months for that stretch west of Interstate 4.
Located just south of Daryl Carter Parkway and its future I-4 interchange and north of Marbella Palms Court, the 2.75-acre parcel is one of the last undeveloped portions of what was once a vast Ruby Lake Ranch property dating back to the early 1980s.
Miranda Fitzgerald, co-chair of the land use practice group at Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed, P.A., and attorney for the prospective buyer and seller on this parcel, has had a legal role in that ranch development since the 1980s, and was a primary drafter on the road agreement that helped create Palm Parkway.
This is the last parcel within the Ruby Lake Planned Development that’s still owned by Rtd One, Inc., an original owner of much of the ranch land.
The entity is a family investment vehicle now managed by brothers Richard Regan and Donald T. Regan, Jr. out of Sarasota, sons of the late Donald T. Regan, who was Secretary of the Treasury and White House Chief of Staff during the 1980s in the Ronald Reagan administration.
Fitzgerald filed a Change Determination Review request on Tuesday with Orange County on behalf of the owners, asking to exchange a portion of the allotted commercial trips for this lot within the Ruby Lake PD to allow development of a 100,000-square-foot self storage facility. VHB, Inc. provided analysis of the trips conversion matrix to help justify the request.
Simply Self Storage has the site under contract for what would be its sixth location in the Greater Orlando market.
A closing date for the land deal is likely months away. Approval of the CDR as a non-substantial change would not come until early November by way of the Development Review Committee, and if it’s deemed a substantial change that would require another hearing by county commissioners.
A Development Plan is in production with the help of Tri 3 Civil Engineering Design Studio, and has yet to be filed.
Pulte Homes now owns a majority of property within the PD through its phased acquisition of 158 net-developable acres around Ruby Lake that began in November 2015, where it’s building 231 single-family homes for Ruby Lake Estates.
The new Simply Self Storage project would be the third self-storage facility plan to emerge on Palm Parkway this year.
Winter Park-based developer Titan Properties has a 2.21-acre site under contract just north of the Daryl Carter Parkway intersection with plans for a 96,300-square-foot facility, to be built for established partner Extra Space Storage.
And further north at 9200 Turkey Lake Road (after it converts in name from Palm Parkway), Winter Park’s Nuvo Development has a 1.9-acre lot under contract with plans for a 150,000-square-foot facility, also expected to be built for Extra Space Storage.
Self-storage companies produced the best risk-adjusted return among 10 U.S. real estate investment trust indexes in the past decade, according to Bloomberg’s riskless return ranking. “They had the highest total return and the third-lowest volatility, for a risk-adjusted gain of 10.6 percent,” Bloomberg reported in mid-2015.
Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at bmoser@growthspotter.com, (407) 420-5685 or 
@bobmoser333. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
