After wrapping construction on an upscale apartment community along Boggy Creek Road in Orlando, an Atlanta-based developer now has its sights set on Seminole County.
Watkins Real Estate Group has submitted a pre-application meeting request to the county seeking input on a proposed 306-unit apartment complex on three parcels totaling 23 acres along the north side of Slavia Road, just west of S.R. 417, near Oviedo.
The parcels, located east of Red Bug Lake Road, are currently owned by an entity titled Wilken Property Mgmt, LLC, which acquired them for $575,000 in 2016. Surrounded by woods with a Lowe’s-anchored shopping center to the north, one of the parcels eyed by Watkins has been used as a storage lot for boats and RVs.
“One of the parcels is currently zoned PD, with an approved RV/Boat storage use,” Mary Moskowitz, Seminole County’s planning and development manager, said in an email. “The other two parcels are zoned A-1, agriculture. The proposed apartments would require a rezone.”
Nat Barganier, Watkins Real Estate Group’s vice president of multifamily development for Florida, declined to comment, citing the early stages of the project.
Conceptual site plans submitted to the county by Cycorp Engineering, Inc. show nine three-story buildings with 34 units each and a surface parking lot with 606 spaces.
A pool and amenity area will go on the southeastern edge of the property, between the clubhouse and a nearly one-acre retention pond. This is the smallest of three stormwater ponds in the community, according to site plans. One on the southwestern edge totals 1.6 acres while a pond on the northernmost tip of the site spans 1.1 acres.
County code requires that 35 percent of the project site be reserved for open space.
Watkins Real Estate Group develops and manages residential and commercial assets in four southeastern states: Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida.
Its commercial portfolio in Florida includes a newly-opened Publix-anchored shopping center in Polk County’s Auburndale, as well as several recently sold outparcels in Lakeland.
The company’s only residential asset in Florida, according to its website, is the 310-unit Landings at Boggy Creek, which opened near Lake Nona, just north of the Osceola County line, in 2022.
Construction began after an entity affiliated with Watkins Real Estate Group secured a construction loan totaling $45.5 million from Truist Bank in September 2020, according to county records.
Designed by Charlan Brock Architects, the luxury community at 3060 Landings Circle, off Boggy Creek Road, consists of seven, four-story residential buildings around a pond, according to site plans.
Amenities include a resort-style pool with sundeck, covered outdoor living space, fire pit area with grilling stations, a 24-hour fitness center with a yoga and cycle studio, a WIFI café and coffee bar,
According to apartments.com, rent at The Landings at Boggy Creek ranges from $1,740 for a one-bedroom unit to $2,755 for a three-bedroom unit.
The area around this apartment community is surging with new residential development. To the north, Arlington Properties is seeking approval to build a second apartment community within the roughly 75-acre Tyson Ranch PD. The company has already started work on a 350-unit multifamily complex and recently filed plans to put another 325 units on adjacent land to the east.
On the opposite side of Boggy Creek Road, land investors Jim Dowd and Daryl Carter are getting ready to hand off some of the 22 acres they own to a Texas-based developer with plans to build two separate multifamily projects totaling 638 units
Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at (407)-800-1161 or dwyatt@GrowthSpotter.com. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
