ResiBuilt, the fast-growing homebuilder that exclusively builds rental homes, has a second project in the pipeline for Osceola County.
The Atlanta-based builder has a purchase contract for 29 acres on Kissimmee Park Road, for a 201-unit townhome community that will be known as Cross Prairie South. The site is just southeast of the planned high school campus within the CrossPrairie master-planned community now under construction. It’s one of two purpose-built rental communities that will be in walking distance of the school campus.
The other, Amavi St. Cloud, will be directly north of the school. That project will be developed by Mill Creek Residential Trust and will have 238 townhome units. Mill Creek already has an approved Concept Plan. Both projects are on Wednesday’s consent agenda for Osceola’s Development Review Committee. Mill Creek’s PSP subdivides the parcel into 13 lots — one for each neighborhood block— and separate tracts for each public roadway, alleyway, stormwater pond and recreation space.
Both neighborhoods lie within the county’s East of Lake Toho Mixed-Use District, and both were redesigned to comply with new residential design standards under consideration by the Board of County Commissioners.
ResiBuilt engaged Rj Whidden & Associates to create a PSP based on the new standards, which require townhomes to be rear-loaded. The 29-acre parcel is currently owned by Debra Wallauer but was part of the Concept Plan approved for CrossPrairie. The PSP plats each unit as an individual lot. Maddelena said their civil engineers from Hanson Walter & Associates had to redesign the project to convert the front-loaded townhomes into the rear-loaded product. In doing so, they lost about a half-dozen units.
Maddalena said ResiBuilt currently doesn’t offer rear-loaded townhomes in its other communities, so the company is designing a new product line for Osceola County. The company also has permits under review for a 554-home community on Hickory Tree Road, south of St. Cloud called Hickory Village at Lake Gentry. In that project, ResiBuilt will partner with a retail homebuilder to develop half of the units as fee-simple homes.
“On Hickory Tree, we’re not going to be doing 500-plus rentals,” Maddalena said. “We’ve been putting it out to multiple builders — same with our projects in Lake County. We will always look for a retail partner to break that up because we don’t want to oversaturate one area with too many rentals.”
The PS for Hickory Village was approved back in May with the new building standards added as a condition. That forced the redesign, which means Cross Prairie South will probably be the first of ResiBuilt’s four Central Florida projects to break ground. The company has two projects in the pipeline near The Villages, in Leesburg and Wildwood.
“We’re going to have a lot come up all at the same time — 2023’s going to be big for us,” Maddalena said.
ResiBuilt is a subsidiary of ResiCap, which was founded in 2010 as a management platform for institutional owners of single-family rental properties. In 2020, ResiCap entered into a $1 billion joint venture with private equity firm Rockpoint to invest in purpose-built rental subdivisions in the Southeastern U.S. Last November, the JV announced it had expanded its initial investment by another $2 billion with the goal of increasing its pipeline of new BTR homes to 9,000 units.
Florida plays a major role in the company’s expansion plans. ResiBuilt opened and staffed a Florida division in 2021 and currently has projects in the pipeline north of Tampa and in Jacksonville.
“We’re now in our office in Lake Nona,” Maddalena said. “Our pipeline continues to grow. Our financial partner is actively buying land.”
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