New York-based Acram Group has filed plans with the City of Orlando for a new $96.5 million mixed-use tower in the city’s North Quarter District, between the CBD and Ivanhoe Village.
Acram, formerly JMC Holdings, paid $6.7 million last August for a pair of 50-year-old, low-rise office buildings at 924 and 934 N. Magnolia Ave., just north of Orlando’s senior recreation center. Those buildings would be razed to the clear the way for a pair of towers and parking garage that would add 386 residential units — including some live-work units — to the downtown market.
This project would put a new spin on the city’s requirement for activated street-level uses by providing a public plaza and garden that is elevated three feet above the street and accessible from Magnolia and Weber and the Orlando Urban Trail. The elevated plaza would include retail space, a restaurant, and two access-controlled lobbies for the residential towers. The north-facing tower would also have 4,170-square feet of live-work space and retail fronting on Weber Street. In all, the plan by Baker Barrios includes nearly 35,000 square feet of non-residential space, including a designated restaurant on the plaza garden and 3,500 square feet of retail facing Magnolia.
“The ground floor massing is eroded to allow connections to the public garden and plaza area,” architect Wayne Dunkelberger wrote in the project narrative. “The architectural articulation for the residential tower is composed of a staggered vertical trio of balconies providing movement in the facade. The amenity level on the 9th floor is carved into the building and accentuated by a frame.”
The north tower would be taller of the two, with 19 stories and a building height of 235 feet, while the east tower would be 17 stories. The north tower also is slightly convex, with an angle in the center that creates a break in the plane of the north elevation and a larger streetscape along Weber. Dunkelberger wrote that by giving the project the appearance of three towers, the developer can take advantage of views out to downtown Orlando, Lake Concord, Lake Ivanhoe and Lake Highland.
The building’s amenities are divided across multiple levels, including nearly 4,000 square feet that opens out to the elevated garden plaza. The building plan also shows amenities on the garage roof, with a pool, shade pavilion and dog walk area accessible from the ninth floor of all three buildings. The east building that faces Magnolia is designed with an open breezeway in the center of the building leading to the pool deck. The breezeway also links two indoor-outdoor amenity spaces with tree-lined balconies overlooking on the west and north towers.
The 18th floor of the east tower features a rooftop garden, and one floor up on the north tower there’s a third amenity room with a tree-lined balcony. The roof of the two north towers utilizes light boxes across the entire roofline to screen the mechanical equipment. Apartment balconies are aligned in sets of three, and circular metal tubes and alternating shades of glass provide vertical accents.
The development matrix calls for 72 studios, 129 one-bedroom units, 120 two-bedroom units and 15 three-bedroom units.
Acram Group officials could not be reached for comment.
The property is surrounded by other sites that have been primed for development. Two blocks to the west is the site the proposed Vertical Medical City tower, which has an approved plan for a 444-foot mixed-use tower. Orlando Utilities Commission’s historic Lake Ivanoe building on Orange Avenue hit the market in late 2021. And just across the street at Magnolia and Marks, local architect Brian Ray has assembled several parcels with plans to market the property for a 20-story mixed-use tower.
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