Boyd Development plans to bring train station design to its next apartment community in Horizon West

Boyd Development Corporation— which is behind the 1,200-acre Hamlin town center in the rapidly growing Horizon West area— is drawing inspiration from old Florida train stations for its next apartment community planned for Avalon Road.

“This clubhouse will be patterned after an old railway station,” Ken Kupp, a partner with the Winter Garden-based company told GrowthSpotter. “Our architect (Charlan Brock Associates) took lead from some of those historic (railroad station) designs and is incorporating it into the building. You’ll have a great hall like most great train stations have inside, you’ll have high ceilings, and exposed trusses. We want to make it look like it was always there and just converted into a multifamily amenity.”

That’s why the 382-unit project submitted to Orange County on Feb. 2 will be called The Station at Hamlin. The community will include a number of outdoor recreational amenities, including pickleball courts, parks, and a walking trail.

It’s part of a larger effort by Boyd to bring a cluster of multifamily and for-rent townhomes totaling more than 1,000 units — as well as more than 600,000 square feet of nonresidential space — to a swath of land near New Independence Parkway.

The land pinpointed for the Station project is located just south of where Boyd already has approval to build an 89-unit for-rent townhome community called Homeplace at Hamlin Lakes. Site plans show three-story residential buildings ranging in size from eight units to two units.

To the east, Boyd is building The Homestead at Hamlin West, which consists of 373 multifamily units. It’s themed around an urban farm lifestyle and comes complete with a barn and stable.

Construction is 50% complete.

All of these projects make up a more than 120-acre PD in Horizon West’s Town Center Village that was approved by the county’s DRC with entitlements for 864 multi-family units, 225 townhome units, and 630,763 square feet of non-residential development across nine parcels between Avalon Road and S.R. 429.

Boyd is continuing its trend of bringing creative themes to its multifamily products in the Hamlin PD. The 250-unit Lodge at Hamlin, which opened in 2021, features a clubhouse that resembles a lodge you’d find in a public park out west, Kupp said.

For the 316-unit Lakewalk at Hamlin, built in 2018, the clubhouse is designed to look like an old packing warehouse.

“Everything we do out here is consistent with a theme of an old community that was rejuvenated into a new town center,” Kupp said. “This is just a follow-on to that concept.”

Horizon West has become a desirable spot for multifamily development due to its location along State Road 429, said Scott Ramey, the executive managing director with Newmark who specializes in the multifamily sector.

“It’s all just fueled by accessibility,” he said. “Now with how easy and convenient State Road 429 is to get on, someone can live out in Horizon West and have a shorter drive time even into downtown Orlando versus someone who is living in Windermere just because of how convenient the toll roads are to take.”

And the recent arrival of shopping destinations, restaurants, and a hospital has made the area even more attractive, he added. There’s a lot of demand for more apartments there, Ramey said.

“Frankly, everything that has delivered there over the last several years has been absorbed very quickly,” he said.

The Station at Hamlin project, submitted to Orange County on Feb. 28, is slated for parcels 1 and 2 of the PD, which covers 22 acres nearest to Avalon Road.

The land, Kupp says, was originally owned by Orange County but was traded to the developer in exchange for property to build a fire station.

“We gave them a fire station site and we got this land in return,” Kupp said. “So this is new land to us. We are simply bringing this new land into the existing planned development. This expands our footprint. And we are doing some more commercial on it too.”

According to site plans drafted by engineering firm Kelly, Collins & Gentry, Inc., the apartment community includes four residential buildings as high as four stories with a mix of one, two and three-bedroom units.

The plan also includes seven three-story townhomes, many of which front Avalon Road. The surface parking lot surrounding the buildings would come with 691 spaces.

The project comes with 2 acres worth of recreational space, according to a land-use plan by LandDesign.

Pickleball courts would go on the southwest edge of the property while a dog park and playground amenity would go into the northeast corner. Site plans show five courtyards, a linear park along the eastern boundary of the property, and a trail for walking, running and cycling.

Boyd began assembling property for its Hamlin community in 2011. Since then, the firm has amassed more than 1,000 acres of land surrounding the S.R. 429 (Western Beltway) and the New Independence Parkway interchange.

Overall, Hamlin has entitlements for 2 million square feet of commercial space. It’s currently home to three big-box anchors —Cinépolis Luxury Cinemas, Publix Super Market, and Walmart Supercenter — as well as a 75-acre medical campus by Orlando Health, a 481-acre lake with boat access to the town center, more than 50 miles of trails and lakefront boardwalks and several public and private schools.

The area will one day be centered around a 220-acre community park. What Orange County leaders have coined its version of New York’s Central Park could feature an outdoor amphitheater for major concerts, botanical gardens and an aquatics center.

Near the hospital on the west side of S.R. 429, Boyd is planning a mixed-use project called Hamlin 30. A rezoning request to allow the development of 100 multifamily units, approximately 170,000 square feet of commercial space, and up to 26 hotel rooms was submitted to the county a year ago.

Approval is contingent upon the developer and the county inking a road network agreement to address traffic generated by the project.

In a Dec. 28 letter to the county, James Willard with the Shutts and Bowen law firm said that Boyd Development is willing to pay the county its proportionate share of road improvements costs required to accommodate the project. For the project, Boyd is expected to pay the county $2.6 million in impact fees, according to a traffic study conducted by engineering firm VHB.

The road improvements could benefit other development projects nearby. Just to the northeast, Orange County’s first medical school is being built across the street from the newly-opened Orlando Health hospital.

The Orlando College of Osteopathic Medicine will include a 360-unit market-rate apartment community next door and has space reserved for a 20-acre medical campus with 177,800 square feet of commercial space.

On the opposite side of S.R. 429, across from the medical school site, Park Square Commercial, a division of Park Square Homes, is building a 270-unit apartment community called Horizon Vue.

Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at (407)-800-1161 or dwyatt@GrowthSpotter.com, or tweet me at @DustinWyattGS. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.