IN THE NEWS
The Miami-based developer who recently bought land with permits for 210 vacation rental townhomes is going back to the drawing board to redesign the Kissimmee site.
MAS Development paid $4.8 million for the 14.4-acre site on Old Vineland
Road, north of U.S. 192. The proposed Solamar development on Old Vineland Road had been owned by the same Houston developer, Fahad Al-Turki, since 2005. He had secured site development approvals from Osceola County for the project in early March but sold it to MAS Development later that month.
“We had building permits ready to be pulled,” said Dawn Michele Evans-Hall, with the planning and design firm Evans Group. “They are not proceeding with our plans. They are redesigning the project. I think they want to go smaller.”
Evans-Hall said MAS intends to construct a mix of one- and two-story units instead of the recently approved plan. “They’re from South Florida, so they feel like they have a different understanding of the market,” she said.
Attempts to reach officials at MAS were unsuccessful.
The Solamar site is one of two projects on Old Vineland Road going through a redesign.
Carlton Land President Jitendrakumar Patel, owner of the 7.2-acre site, had presented a high-density mixed-use concept to the county’s Development Review Committee last summer. The original vision called for up to 450 dwelling units, a mix of multifamily and age-restricted units with structured parking and 20,000 square feet of retail and commercial fronting on Old Vineland Road.
Earlier this month the design consultants from MEI Partners requested a new pre-application meeting to discuss a revised concept that calls for a surface-parked apartment complex with 274 units. The consultants noted that they had completed a market feasibility study, which didn’t support the higher density product or the retail use.
Farmer Architecture has submitted new renderings, showing the building height reduced from five stories to four. The new site plan also eliminates a stormwater pond in favor of an underground retention system.
Old Vineland Road has seen a spate of development activity recently, with the completion of the 377-unit Vineland Landings community in 2018 and final phase of Park Square Homes’ Veranda Palms resort community. The Solamar property is across from Vineland Landings, which has a mix of three-story apartment buildings on the southern half of the property, and a mix of two-story carriage house units and/or single-story villas on the northern half.
Dominium, a leading developer and operator of affordable housing, is in construction plan review for 330 units of affordable senior housing next door to Vineland Landings.
April 14, 2021
