Two new multifamily communities are being planned in west Orange County.
National multifamily developer Fore Property Company is under contract to purchase about 16 acres along Florida’s Turnpike in Ocoee with plans to build a 410-unit apartment community.
A rezoning application and preliminary site plan go before Ocoee’s planning and zoning board in July and then the city commission in August.
The property is owned by members of the family-run citrus grower Heller Brothers Packing Corporation. It’s part of a larger roughly 80-acre assemblage of land, southeast of Maguire Road and Old Winter Garden Road, owned by the Heller family.
Of the approximately 80 acres, about 35 are developable. The site includes a large retention pond at its center and portions of Lake Lilly and Lake Pearl.
Conceptual plans for the portion of land under contract show Fore Property intends to build a residential community with five multifamily buildings and two townhome buildings with 15 units each.
Other features include dock access over a large retention pond, community clubhouse, pool and detached carriage houses.
Charlan Brock Architects was listed as the architect. Orlando-based Harris Civil Engineers is the civil engineer.
Commercial developers may build office space, retail, sit-down restaurants or nationally-branded hotels on the remaining land.
In Apopka, a sprawling 21.6-acre residence belonging to Francis Heidrich Jr. and Cathy Tolbert, is being looked at by Winter Park-based real estate firm First Team Commercial for redevelopment.
The company is seeking Planned Development Master Plan/Major Development Plan approvals from the city to develop a 304-unit apartment community at 2302 Ocoee-Apopka Road.
Conceptual plans show seven garden-style apartment buildings and a community clubhouse with pool overlooking Medicine Lake.
About 16.5 acres are considered developable. Kimley-Horn and Associates is the civil engineer and landscape architect.
The property owners are related to the family members that founded Herman J. Heidrich & Sons, a prominent fruit and produce business that grew into Florida’s largest shipper of fresh fruit in the 1960s.
Like the Heidrich family, many growers in the area are looking to sell their land to national homebuilders and multifamily developers.
Spring Hill, Tennessee-based JCF Living, is seeking to build a residential project on about 43 acres around 1252 S. Binion Rd. owned by Bert E. Roper and Barbara C. Roper Family LLLP.
The lineage of the members of the company date back to the 1850s when family members owned and operated a large citrus production business in Apopka.
JCF Living has not yet submitted plans, but the company’s website says the firm specializes in building “housements,” an apparent combination of the words house and apartment. D.R. Horton is developing a separate Build-for-Rent community nearby.
Other active multifamily developers include Wood Partners, which is almost complete building a 285-unit apartment community at 2423 Areca Palm Dr., and Ohio-based NM Residential, which has plans to build a 264-unit multifamily community called Summer House, south of Ocoee Apopka Road.
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