Apartments and hotel eyed for land near Sanford airport

The long-time owner of land totaling 17 acres in Sanford is exploring the possibility of putting an apartment complex and hotel along E. Lake Mary Boulevard.

Sadique Jaffer, a land developer with Lake Mary-based Jaffer Acquisitions Group, has submitted a preliminary development application to the city of Sanford for a plan that calls for the construction of 284 multifamily units on the larger 14-acre parcel and 140 hotel rooms on the smaller parcel to the west, on the opposite side of Cameron Avenue.

The properties sit just south of the Orlando-Sanford Airport.

Jaffer bought the land in 2000 for $750,000 using an entity titled Airport Industrial Partners, LLC. He could not be reached for comment.

Site plans show an 80,000 square-foot hotel with a maximum height of 70 feet. The apartment complex would rise as tall as 65 feet with a minimum living area of 600 square feet, according to site plans drafted by engineering firm Madden, Moorhead & Stokes

While many new multifamily projects are in the pipeline, Seminole County has seen very little new hotel activity in recent years. According to CoStar, there are only two hotels under construction countywide, and both are scheduled to open in the second quarter of 2024.

A 122-room Home2 Suites by Hilton is being built in Lake Mary on New Technology Blvd while an 88-room Home2 Suites by Hilton is going up in Sanford at 4750 W State Road 46, according to Co-Star.

In Seminole County, “no new hotels opened in 2022, and based on the current pipeline there aren’t any expected to open in 2023,” said Daryl Cronk, the director of Hospitality Analytics with Co-Star.

This isn’t Jaffer’s first time assembling property in Sanford for housing. GrowthSpotter reported in 2016 that a team consisting of Jaffer, Bobby Luthra and Mohamedtaki Jaffer was prepping more than 150 acres along the south side of Lake Mary Boulevard, east of Brisson Avenue, for more than 1,000 single-family homes and two commercial tracts.

Starlight Homes, a division of Ashton Woods, bought portions of the land in 2017 and 2018 at a total cost of $7.4 million to build out its 284-lot Wyndham Preserve community.

In 2021, Toll Brothers bought land from an entity managed by Jaffer for $3.1 million for its 125-lot Riverside Oaks community north of the airport.

Also in 2021, Jaffer and Luthra sold a development site in Oakland to an entity affiliated with multifamily developer Cornerstone Residential Management LLC for $7.7 million. The 16-acre property, once owned by a brother of Osama bin Laden, has commercial pads ready to accommodate a 6,000-square-foot sit-down restaurant, a 3,500-square-foot quick-service restaurant, 20,000 square feet of retail space, and a 5,000-square-foot bank.

It also holds entitlements for up to 195 assisted living and independent living units, as well as eight large single-family homes by the lake.

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.