Winter Park-based Nuvo Development is running ahead of a pack of self-storage developers pursuing land in the Dr. Phillips submarket, with its debt and equity lined up and closing anticipated by June for a site on Turkey Lake Road.
Nuvo has had the 1.9-acre Lot 6 under contract since mid-2017 within the 65 acres at 9200 Turkey Lake Road, which developer Randall F. Greene has been working through Orange County review since April 2016 for mixed-use development.
Nuvo filed a Development Plan on Thursday with the county for its five-story Extra Space Storage building with total gross square footage of 119,465, down from an estimated 150,000 square feet last year. A building height waiver to 55 feet earned County Commission approval in 2017.
“We love the appeal of the Dr. Phillips and Windermere demographic there, and multifamily sites in close proximity to one another for self-storage. There is a ton of multifamily up and down Palm Parkway with more coming,” Nuvo co-partner Gary Cardamone told GrowthSpotter. “We’ve been waiting on (Greene’s RG Development and Investments) to get their lake impact study finished, which it now has. We anticipate having our site work and vertical construction permits in October.”
Located on Big Sand Lake and just a few hundred yards north of Westgate Lakes Resort, the entire property features about 46 developable acres, with 32,000 Annual Average Daily Trips (AADT) along Turkey Lake Road and more than 167,000 on Interstate 4.
Greene should earn final county approval in mid-April for the property’s Preliminary Subdivision Plan (PSP). It was first submitted in September 2016, and includes seven planned lots and a 7-acre retention pond that have been redrawn multiple times around a 19.39-acre conservation tract in the center for Boo Boo Lake.
Nuvo is scheduled to close 30 days after that PSP approval. Greene’s team will build common-use infrastructure through the property first.
The self-storage specialists have a joint venture equity partner in place, and a stable of banks they work with regularly to choose from for construction lender, said Cardamone, who declined to forecast a total project cost.
Nuvo has developed self-storage projects up and down the East Coast. Locally, the company has a 99,000-square-foot facility in south downtown Orlando near completion, another under construction in Waterford Lakes about 45 days from finish, a 90,000-square-foot facility in Celebration with site work underway now, and a property in Baldwin Park planned for a four-story self-storage facility now under permit review.
For their Turkey Lake Road site, Cardamone and co-partner Jason Canin initially liked the complete lack of competition in that submarket.
But since mid-2017, three or more other self-storage projects have been proposed within four miles in the Dr. Phillips submarket and tourism corridor to the east.
“There were concerns with those (other self-storage projects), so it’s good we have our debt and equity in place,” Cardamone said. “We’ve done millions of square feet of this, so what concerns us are when you have new developers coming into market who see rosy returns and read positive reports, but don’t understand that the market won’t absorb endless supply.”
Elsewhere on Greene’s 65-acre site on Turkey Lake Road, the westernmost 9.98 acres (Lot 7) facing Big Sand Lake are under contract to a national multifamily owner-operator for 286 apartments, which has yet to file its own DP.
7-Eleven is lined up for a one-acre land lease (Lot 2), and DCS is negotiating with other retail and dining outlets for two more one-acre lots.
Nuvo’s consultancy team on the self-storage project includes Poulos & Bennett, Farmer Architecture, Allen & Company, Dale and Company, and Terracon Consultants.
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