[ad_1]
When Brock Nicholas first saw the 77-acre vacant lot in the heart of Orlando’s International Drive corridor, he knew he had found a unicorn.
As president of Lennar’s Orlando division, Nicholas has built and sold thousands of vacation homes in Osceola County, but found a location so close to the Orange County Convention Center and Universal Theme Parks that was a good fit for a resort community. That never happened.
Everyone from Lennar to Pulte to Park Square Homes to Encore Homes was building resort communities in the Kissimmee and Four Corners areas.
“So anything you build there has to be better than the last thing you built, and so there’s a bit of an arms race as these communities develop,” he tells GrowthSpotter. Told. “That’s why the prices keep going up.”
Nicholas wanted to find a location that could be developed as a residential-style resort community within a commercial hub that would serve groups and family travelers.
The property at 5120 Del Verde Way, just south of Desertland Park, checked all the boxes. In addition to 70 of the same large-scale villas being built at Champions Gate, the city of Orlando is also building 200 four- and five-bedroom townhouse-style units and 256 two- and three-bedroom apartment-style units. approved zoning to allow construction of. Huge amenities are centrally located and walkable from every unit.
Renner bought the property in December 2019 for $26.25 million, but shelved the project for more than a year due to the coronavirus pandemic. In 2021, Nicholas retired from Lennar and launched a new company, Baseline Property Group, with partner Stephen Lobel, a longtime vacation property investor.
Together, they set out to reinvent the vacation home industry in Orlando, the nation’s number one tourist destination and top vacation home market.
“We’re right in the middle of Epic Universe and Universal Orlando. Location-wise, you can’t find a better place or this type of product,” Nicholas said.
Baseline has negotiated a deal with Lennar to buy the entire resort, and has already sold 197 units for a total of $170 million, according to public records. Baseline has rebranded the project Villatel Orlando Resort and is already leasing completed units. This resort was sold out for MEGACON Orlando/Pro Bowl weekend.
The entire resort is expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2025. Mr. Nicholas said that the investment amount during construction he will exceed $500 million.
The resort’s centerpiece is a $25 million water sports park featuring two pools with cabanas, water slides, a splash park, shaded pickleball courts, basketball courts and bocce ball. There’s also a huge clubhouse with a bar and grill, fitness center, and top golf swing suite.
Nicholas said the facility is scheduled to open in late 2024 and is about three times the size of the facility he built when he and Renner were together.
“This is a complete enhancement of the program that would have been had it been a sales project,” Nicholas said.
Baseline purchases the villas in “white box” condition, takes over the interior design work and equips each unit to meet its own standards. Here, this project starts from a typical villa resort.
Baseline established a wholly owned subsidiary, Immersive Scenic Studios, with its own factory nearby, to design and mass-produce unique themes and furniture.
The factory has designated space for foam mold design, 3D printing, carpentry, and painting. The company has 43 of his full-time employees, who work on creating murals, bunk beds and arcade games. The themed rooms are so unique that Villatel Orlando was featured in Forbes.
Each townhouse and villa has a theater room, an arcade, a jungle, a cave, space, and even a bedroom made to resemble a grilled cheese sandwich. The artwork is hand-painted on canvas, then digitally printed onto vinyl and can be applied directly to walls or furniture.
“Each piece is an original piece of art that can be reproduced 1,000 times,” Nicholas says. “So our plan is to have a catalog of quite a lot of backgrounds that we can sell in retail stores to families who want to design their own rooms for their families after we do the project here. .”
The Immersive Scenic Studios team also designs and builds themed furniture and murals for Colorado’s Baseline Resort and Melbourne’s Harbor Island Beach Club. The company is in the permitting process for another vacation resort in the Smoky Mountains in Sevierville, Tennessee.
The advantages of using vinyl are speed, expandability, and longevity. It’s important for commercial properties to have furniture and walls that can be easily wiped clean.
“Selling a house once is a completely different business model than selling a house, say, 40 times a year for a week,” Nicholas said. “And if you’re selling over and over again for week-long stays, there’s a lot of incentive to pay attention to how that interior is set up, how it’s managed, how much it costs to maintain, and how it’s managed. It lasts a long time — you know, all of the above.”
Most hotel properties renovate their rooms and update their facilities every five years, so they need plenty of work to keep their business running. The company has a separate warehouse in Orlando to store furniture, soft goods and themed products, ready for installation once the building is completed.
“This business will eventually get us so good at what we do that we’ll be selling our products to the outside world,” he said. “But we are perfecting the technology in our own projects.”
Do you have any tips for development in Central Florida? Contact us at lkinsler@GrowthSpotter.com or (407) 420-6261. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook and LinkedIn.
[ad_2]
Source link
