For their more than a decade of work in completing the first phase of Creative Village, developers Craig Ustler and Brooke Myers were named Downtowners of the Year, while the Orlando Magic’s AdventHealth Training Center took home the Award of Excellence Tuesday during the Orlando Downtown Partnership’s 2023 Golden Brick Awards.
Ustler’s Ustler Development and Myers’ VelocityRED partnered with Banc of America CDC as co-developers of the 68-acre Creative Village urban innovation district, which is now home to the UCF and Valencia College shared downtown campus and the new EA Sports offices. They also took home the award for Public Works & Placemaking for Luminary Green Park, which marked the final component of the $700 million investment.
This 2.3-acre public park is a unique and special gathering space for residents, workers, and students in Parramore and other downtown Orlando neighborhoods. Luminary Green has a large, welcoming lawn for everyone to come together, play, and enjoy the outdoors.
The north end of the park features an iconic trellis and the city’s newest Instagram-worthy photo spot. This circular feature serves as the aesthetic centerpiece of the park and provides an elevated vantage point of Creative Village and the downtown Orlando skyline. The Ustler Group and its various development partners have approvals in place for the next phase of Creative Village, which will include another mixed-income housing community, a hotel, an office building and 26-story apartment tower. Plans also include a second phase of student housing and adaptive reuse of the Bob Carr Theater building.
Ustler also teamed up with Wood Partners to develop the 285-unit Alta Health Village apartments, which won the 2022 award for Commercial & Residential Development. The urban-style project across from the AdventHealth Cancer Institute on N Orange Avenue is seven stories with structured parking and a rooftop pool deck with views of downtown Orlando. It was acquired in December by Dallas-based Conti Capital for $107 million. The project was designed by Charlan Brock Architects.
The Orlando Magic began assembling property for its new training facility north of Amway Center in 2018 and broke ground in 2020 for the 100,000-square-foot training center with attached 30,000-square-foot orthopedic and sports medicine clinic operated by AdventHealth, the team’s longtime medical partner. The center opened in 2022 and won the Golden Brick Award of Excellence.
The $70 million facility brings whole-person medicine, science, and research together to optimize sports performance, applying those learnings to the broader community.
The project incorporates leading training and recovery technologies, including an altitude chamber, hydrotherapy offerings, and an expansive locker room, and two full-size courts.
The project leapfrogged over the Magic’s proposed Sports+Entertainment District, which team officials say will commence construction this year.
The Golden Brick for New Office Design went to the Orlando Economic Partnership for its new downtown headquarters, which contains the region’s first digital twin and serves the seven-county region.
Design-build firm Interstruct took home the award for Redesign & Renovation for its new headquarters building at 814 W. Church St. The firm started work in 2021 on the adaptive reuse of the 74-year-old warehouse in Parramore.
The renovation called for restoring the original storefront windows of the building that had been bricked in for decades.
The architecture of the original 1947 building exhibits a hint of industrial art-deco with its stepped parapet and chamfered vertical edge facade, which is also a repeated element on the capital of the surface pilasters. Architectural transparency, repetition, asymmetrical rhythm and celebrating the imperfection and beauty of exposed materials would become key elements of their design.
The company added 1,200 square feet of executive office space on a second floor mezzanine level on the south side of the building. About 1,500 square feet is dedicated to retail space on the north side fronting West Church Street. Interstruct CEO Ryan Young told GrowthSpotter the building would operate at net-zero, thanks to a new insulated, energy-efficient roof system was added with a full solar array on all three roof sections.
Mills 50’s newest ice creamery, Sampaguita, introduced Orlando to a whole new palette of flavors based on owner Marie Mercado’s childhood memories of growing up in the Philippines. The menu for the Hospitality & Dining winner includes ice cream flavors that combine sweet, creamy and umami, such as ube latte, queso guava cheesecake and soy sauce butterscotch. Customers lined up outside the door for the store’s early January opening to experiment with the new flavors. Mercado told the Orlando Sentinel’s Amy Drew Thompson the flavors can be divisive.
“Most people here have never heard of it and have no idea what to expect,” she said. “We did cheese and corn and people either loved it or hated it.”
The Downtown Partnership also recognizes special events and downtown programming, including:
Arts & Culture – UCF Celebrates the ArtsCommunity – CareerSource Central Florida Summer Youth Program
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion – Sensory Room presented by AdventHealth
Entertainment & Special Events – Orlando Venues for Camping World Stadium Smashes Concert Record and Record-Breaking Year of Concerts at Amway Center
Innovation & Technology – MetaCenter
Sporting Events – Special Olympics 2022 USA Games Opening Ceremony
Sustainability & Resiliency – Project AWESOME
Game Changer – Unbelievably Real
Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at lkinsler@GrowthSpotter.com or (407) 420-6261, or tweet me at @LKinslerOGrowth. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
