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Church Street Plaza | 28-Story Office/Hotel [Phase 1 Under Construction]


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8 hours ago, dcluley98 said:

If It were me, I might propose a great building with a transit station on the bottom of it that may not happen if the building doesn't get built, then get funding for the building and buy-in from the public and the transit authority in question. then, once the land is bought and the leasing is half-bought tell everybody there are two more phases. Then everybody is pot-committed and I have the bargaining power to move the SunRail station to my own property temporarily if I Kick back in the funds to extend the platform to the north by changing the Ballroom back exits into an entrance for my new building and my old building. . . . and then. . . 

After all that is done, I would leverage the location and profit of the new properties to eventually redevelop the Ballroom and Church Street property holdings to tie into the plaza in a couple of years. 

But that's just me, and my stupid Ideas without any money on an internet forum criticizing projects about which I have limited information. 

they aren't stupid ideas.  Look, I think we all know we aresn't comptrollers for these companies, or the lenders that finance these projects, so when we criticize we do it and take it with a grain of salt because we aren't in their shoes and we know it.  It is what it is.

I think Phase II is a serious proposal b/c I hear about it from a realtor colleague of mine who is looking to move there from one of the other downtown condos when it's built.  I'm sure he has connections to the developer and knows stuff about this because he isn't a pipe dream sort of guy.  Savvy? 

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I think the big deal is that Phase II and/or III are intended to bridge north to Church Street and creating an open area oriented around transit at the tracks there instead of a back alley. The fact that it is a block away walk isn't the key, it's the future plaza that ties into Church Street and the rest of downtown via Gertrude's walk. 

 

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So I just got word earlier this afternoon that the Lincoln-affiliate did in fact close on a construction loan for the tower. Up until hearing this news, I didn't think this would project was ever going to actually happen... even with the site work being underway. I figured it was a desperate attempt to make it look more legit and get a lender to sign on. That said, the lender is a non-bank financing company - so they (Lincoln) are paying a hefty premium to get this thing vertical. Not surprising since every bank that looked at this passed on the risk.

As a community resident, I am excited this is happening. But it will he interesting to see how it pans out financially if they can't fill up the office space and/or the hotel component doesn't hits its projections. 

Edited by GRS328
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3 hours ago, codypet said:

It's literally across the street from the other one.  I don't know why it HAS to be a block north.  It'd be nice, but realistically how much of a dealbreaker is it?  If you work in City Commons I'm sure that the NB station is really annoying for you.  

My thing on this is that on it's east side (SB platform) is a parking garage (no life), and to the west is a drainage ditch (no life) then an I-4 ramp (no life).  If it was adjacent to buildings with offices, residential, and/or retail, it would be fine.  For only being across South Street, it really does seem like a no man's land like AndyPok1 alluded to. 

The City Commons people don't really have to walk that far for the NB platform; I think it's only halfway to Church St.

If they never more the platform, I think that once the CCP (Church Street Plaza, not CCCP as in...nevermind), opens, it will make that situation  much better.  BUT, I think what should be done is that once they open CCP, they should somehow convert some of the first floor spaces in either the Suntrust garage or City garages into simple retail.

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19 hours ago, codypet said:

It's literally across the street from the other one.  I don't know why it HAS to be a block north.  It'd be nice, but realistically how much of a dealbreaker is it?  If you work in City Commons I'm sure that the NB station is really annoying for you.  

Standing in the pouring rain waiting to jaywalk South is awesome.

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5 hours ago, uncreativeusername said:

OK, I may be overlooking something, but how is it that when this was originally proposed as a single tower with an integrated SunRail, there was enough room to build the station, but now that the proposal includes additional phases, there isn't room?

It was never proposed to have the station moved in phase one. That was marketing hype by the developer to sell people on the project. The actual plans from the beginning have always shown that the station would have to wait until they had more room to work with.  Note the same developer called it "Grand Central Station" like, lol. Sure, a covered platform with a ground floor lobby, coffee shop, and some crappers is exactly like "Grand Central Station." Dude has a strong hype game, I will give him that. . . and he knows how to get our idiotic press to buy it without doing any research. 

Edited by dcluley98
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On 10/13/2017 at 5:08 PM, jrs2 said:

... they should somehow convert some of the first floor spaces in either the Suntrust garage or City garages into simple retail.

There is plenty of space - probably 50-55 feet - between the SunTrust Garage and the driveway behind the platform that could potentially be used for a liner building. 

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^^

LOL!  Yeah.  If I was the author of those articles, I would never have repeated the claim of "Grand Central Station-like" that he made.  Just ridiculous.  The Intermodal Center at OIA is waaay closer to being that than a coffee shop at a platform like the one at FH South.

Maybe Phase II has always been part of the plan even though they didn't originally portray the project as being phased.  I do know that they did talk about residential being part of the project from close to the beginning, which made me think it would be inside the same tower.  Shoot, they would do us all a big favor if they just tacked on another 15 floors and brought this thing to 41 stories, saving the Pres Ball Room and giving us a new tallest.  They would just need another elevator core and private lobby worked in.

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1 hour ago, Boomer136 said:

the bottom of the ballroom is unfinished, mostly storage. The secondfloor is the service corridor, but below is just storage. I was thinking along the same lines as a station could easily done.

Seems to make the most sense to me.

That building just screams train station.

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Latest from Brinkmann and the Sentinel (he seems to be one of the more competent business reporters in town, imho):

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/brinkmann-on-business/os-cfb-brinkmann-church-street-20171020-story.html

Interestingly, the article suggests this is the last office tower we see downtown for a while.

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3 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

Latest from Brinkmann and the Sentinel (he seems to be one of the more competent business reporters in town, imho):

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/brinkmann-on-business/os-cfb-brinkmann-church-street-20171020-story.html

Interestingly, the article suggests this is the last office tower we see downtown for a while.

I'm no economist, but I would assume (perhaps incorrectly) that since the economy is doing very well now and since the population of the Orlando metro area is rapidly increasing, that we could actually see lots of new towers being built in the coming years.

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2 minutes ago, orange87 said:

I'm no economist, but I would assume (perhaps incorrectly) that since the economy is doing very well now and since the population of the Orlando metro area is rapidly increasing, that we could actually see lots of new towers being built in the coming years.

Let's hope you're right. However, the trend seems to be going the other way. Even the NY Times has done stories about reduced office demand in Manhattan of all places.

There's a number of reasons including the value of downtown real estate now, corporate consolidation, downsizing work forces and increased separation of back office functions.

Orlando's towers tend to house attorneys, accountants and governments. The first two have been downsizing and consolidating apace since the recession; the third tend to advertise it as a political plus to move from downtown to the 'burbs (see Tax Collector Scott Randolph and Property Appraiser Rick Singh, who both left downtown with sizable staffs for the Koger Center area behind Fashion Square shortly after being elected.)

Once upon a time, Orlando's towers were filled with banks and insurance companies. Both have lost thousands of employees to technology and no longer require anything near the level of office space they once had.

As the CEO of American General insurance observed after buying both Gulf Life and Independent Life insurance companies and abandoning their Jacksonville towers, he no longer needed buildings, just a phone.

 

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8 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

Latest from Brinkmann and the Sentinel (he seems to be one of the more competent business reporters in town, imho):

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/brinkmann-on-business/os-cfb-brinkmann-church-street-20171020-story.html

Interestingly, the article suggests this is the last office tower we see downtown for a while.

This is also the man who stated construction on 55W had stalled and wouldn't be completed. I called and told him to step outside of the Sentinel Office and just look towards the building. 

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In his defense, it was a wise bet. The original Dutch developer lost his shirt over it. 

Meanwhile, on these boards we were told Tradition Towers was an absolute "go."

More than one tower downtown has gone bankrupt for the original developers going back as far as Park Lake Tower, 530 East Central and Reeves House just to name the oldest ones I have been around for.

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55 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

In his defense, it was a wise bet. The original Dutch developer lost his shirt over it. 

Meanwhile, on these boards we were told Tradition Towers was an absolute "go."

More than one tower downtown has gone bankrupt for the original developers going back as far as Park Lake Tower, 530 East Central and Reeves House just to name the oldest ones I have been around for.

True, but 55W was well out of the ground and you could visibly see the cranes moving in real time. 

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1 hour ago, RedStar25 said:

True, but 55W was well out of the ground and you could visibly see the cranes moving in real time. 

I seem to recall that 55W stalled on interior construction even while the exterior shell was built. The original Dutch developer had planned for condos.  Of course, what was billed as downtown's "luxury residence" in the development phase eventually morphed in a rowdy highrise apartment  for the nightlife folks. 

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