Downtown Orlando Project Discussion

[IAmFloridaBorn]

On 5/22/2018 at 9:15 AM, popsiclebrandon said:

Article also says they are making it brick so that is a huge upgrade for the area and should blend well with the church.

Agreed.

 

[JFW657]

2 hours ago, Pete C said:

Totally agree, maybe even have it on both sides of the plaza connected via skybridge.

That's what I was thinking.

Maybe even have the entire upper floor(s) bridge the two sides together.

[spenser1058]

So long as the Seneff Arts Plaza doesn't get shrunk into irrelevance, I'm good. Quite by accident, it's become Orlando's front lawn in a way Eola Park can't due to space constraints.

[DreS0803]

With so many apartment developments, is there any possibility for a new Condo tower?

[nite owℓ]

36 minutes ago, DreS0803 said:

With so many apartment developments, is there any possibility for a new Condo tower?

A new condo tower would be nice to see, but who knows when that'll happen. As the demand for housing increases it might be possible if lending guidelines relax again... something's gotta give eventually.

It's hard enough buying an existing condo. After the recession, banks haven't been lending on condos as freely since many properties don't meet their lending requirements. If the building gets approved, then affordability comes into play. I think the avg price for existing condos in a tower in 32801 is around 200k -- and that's just for a studio or 1 bedroom with 1 parking space. I'd imagine the cost for new & pre-construction would be higher. Then add HOA fees (avg $300/month), insurance (usually pretty low), property taxes (they are increasing again) all of which make for a hefty mortgage payment. Average salary in Orlando is around 40-50k... I don't know of very many millennials that could afford the conventional down payment on pre-construction.

[aent]

1 hour ago, nite owℓ said:

A new condo tower would be nice to see, but who knows when that'll happen. As the demand for housing increases it might be possible if lending guidelines relax again... something's gotta give eventually.

It's hard enough buying an existing condo. After the recession, banks haven't been lending on condos as freely since many properties don't meet their lending requirements. If the building gets approved, then affordability comes into play. I think the avg price for existing condos in a tower in 32801 is around 200k -- and that's just for a studio or 1 bedroom with 1 parking space. I'd imagine the cost for new & pre-construction would be higher. Then add HOA fees (avg $300/month), insurance (usually pretty low), property taxes (they are increasing again) all of which make for a hefty mortgage payment. Average salary in Orlando is around 40-50k... I don't know of very many millennials that could afford the conventional down payment on pre-construction.

The Obama-era regulations make condo ownership very difficult, as the requirements now mean they no longer qualify for the FHA subsidized/guaranteed loans, while all houses in the suburbs and in the sprawl do. Developers need to sell 70% of units with 50% of the building agreeing to be owner-occupied to offer FHA loans and the 3.5% down payment, compared to houses, where nearly all houses can qualify for the 3.5% down, even if the price of the condo is cheaper, having to put down 20% instead of a 3.5% makes it a showstopper for most people.

There was talk Trump was going to reverse the rules when he got in, but I believe the FHA has been pretty quiet, Needless to say, Trump is pretty concerned with the look of impropriety on changes designed to help developers. I don't think Orlando will see new downtown condos unless Trump does go ahead and reverse the Obama regulations, and he probably won't until when and if he is re-elected and doesn't have another election to worry about.

[I am Reality]

There are many high-rise condo projects under construction or just recently completed:

The Independent (the "Jenga Tower") - Austin 

Nexus (which looks similar to the Jenga Tower) - Seattle

815 Water Street (mixed-use complex with a dedicated condo tower) - Tampa

Eleven - Minneapolis 

Pacific Gate - San Diego 

Those are just to name a few.  I did not include the obvious big cities (in the NE, Chicago, Miami, LA, SF) 

[nite owℓ]

2 hours ago, aent said:

The Obama-era regulations make condo ownership very difficult, as the requirements now mean they no longer qualify for the FHA subsidized/guaranteed loans, while all houses in the suburbs and in the sprawl do. Developers need to sell 70% of units with 50% of the building agreeing to be owner-occupied to offer FHA loans and the 3.5% down payment, compared to houses, where nearly all houses can qualify for the 3.5% down, even if the price of the condo is cheaper, having to put down 20% instead of a 3.5% makes it a showstopper for most people.

There was talk Trump was going to reverse the rules when he got in, but I believe the FHA has been pretty quiet, Needless to say, Trump is pretty concerned with the look of impropriety on changes designed to help developers. I don't think Orlando will see new downtown condos unless Trump does go ahead and reverse the Obama regulations, and he probably won't until when and if he is re-elected and doesn't have another election to worry about.

Well, there was good reason for tightening lending guidelines as it has caused investors/owners to have more skin in the game (higher down payments or all cash). After the recession, condo units were usually the first piece of real estate to be cut loose which caused HOA's to endure an extreme amount of financial strain. I can't think of one condo project that wasn't affected during the recession. The condo unit I now live in had been abandoned and sat vacant for 5 years -- that's 5 years of someone not paying HOA dues. Now multiply that by majority of investors/owners who overspent and just walked away from their condo. Imagine being one of the few owners living on site and being saddled with doubled or tripled HOA dues  lol.

I'm not sure if de-regulation is the answer as we've already seen what happens when creative financing gets too creative.

 

40 minutes ago, I am Reality said:

There are many high-rise condo projects under construction or just recently completed:

The Independent (the "Jenga Tower") - Austin 

Nexus (which looks similar to the Jenga Tower) - Seattle

815 Water Street (mixed-use complex with a dedicated condo tower) - Tampa

Eleven - Minneapolis 

Pacific Gate - San Diego 

Those are just to name a few.  I did not include the obvious big cities (in the NE, Chicago, Miami, LA, SF)

Apples to oranges, no? None of those projects are happening in downtown Orlando, unfortunately.

 

[aent]

37 minutes ago, nite owℓ said:

Well, there was good reason for tightening lending guidelines as it has caused investors/owners to have more skin in the game (higher down payments or all cash). After the recession, condo units were usually the first piece of real estate to be cut loose which caused HOA's to endure an extreme amount of financial strain. I can't think of one condo project that wasn't affected during the recession. The condo unit I now live in had been abandoned and sat vacant for 5 years -- that's 5 years of someone not paying HOA dues. Now multiply that by majority of investors/owners who overspent and just walked away from their condo. Imagine being one of the few owners living on site and being saddled with doubled or tripled HOA dues  lol.

I'm not sure if de-regulation is the answer as we've already seen what happens when creative financing gets too creative.

The higher end condo market is generally not affected by this, as FHA has never covered the most expensive homes

That happened in tons of single family home communitys as well. I understand that was deemed not as important, as the HOA failing to fix a pipe and roof leak due to lack of funds is much more problematic then the HOA failing to mow common areas and letting the community pool turn green and unusable... but for those interested in the success of urban living and the development of our downtown, the regulation Obama put into place is pushing sprawl. If we feel people should have more skin in the game, I just feel it should apply to the sprawl as well. De-regulation isn't really what was tried before, the banks knew they had bad loans and gave them to the Fannie/Freddie for a very long time, they didn't hold on to most of them. If the loans made sense, they'd be holding onto them.

I think deregulation probably IS the answer, as long as they stop federally insuring these loans for the banks. If we won't stop doing that (and we won't, both sides are against that), I feel at the very least they should compromise and not push further spawl, which increases other governmental costs and has too many unintended consequences. Hell, if you're far enough out, it drops from 3.5% down to 0% down. Maybe we should at the very least say everyone needs at least 5 or 10% down so everyone has more skin in the game and stop helping people with no savings buy a home they can't afford to pay for, but to me, to say you need 20% down to live in urban areas, and 0% to live in sprawl like Obama did just seems unfair.

Edited June 3, 2018 by aent

[Dale]

At present, the US economy appears to be unstoppable. And downtowns everywhere are booming. Ex: now strong rumors of a new tallest for Charlotte. And while there is a lot going on in DT Orlando, I'm still looking for it to escalate to the next level.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Dale

[klstorey]

The issue with downtown Orlando is all the new stuff looks the same. Just big rectangles. The Tremont Church Street tower will help and the Vertical Medical Village will do wonders (if it gets built) but overall there's a major lack of diversity and innovation in downtown designs. 

We need a few big buildings of interests to help our skyline become recognizable. 

[spenser1058]

....Or we could just make it a shrine to Baker Barrios and sell everyone a visor!

[JFW657]

1 hour ago, spenser1058 said:

....Or we could just make it a shrine to Baker Barrios and sell everyone a visor!

Or just build one giant, all encompassing visor over the entire downtown area. Eliminate the incentive to include them into any new building designs. 

[leondecollao]

Again, why do we need tall buildings? (Waiting for all you guys to throw stuff at me lol)

i just don’t get the obsession. I love the urban feel in Paris and there’s no super tall in sight.....

[tc01]

Because this is American!!!! Lol we like big shining things!!!!! 

[spenser1058]

Same with DC, among others. Over the years, I have discovered that those who live downtown are more interested in the amenities and walkscale than building height. Meanwhile, the folks in the 'burbs are more interested in the height as they drive by.

Another thing is that there exists a subset of urban types who assume the Manhattan model is the only one that matters despite there being many other types of cities.

Given that going really tall almost always required a large proportion of trophy buildings and that in today's data-driven world the numbers rarely add up on economics alone (Walmart's HQ is decidedly low-rise vs. the Sears Tower - think about how that worked out) we're probably likely to see the maximum height of towers becoming shorter across the board.

There will be exceptions, such as Asia which was late to the party and cities with space constraints (Boston, New York, Miami.)

Orlando, however, like many inland Sunbelt cities, can grow in all four directions and there is a lack of political will to enforce growth management provisions. The result will be much like what we currently see.

Truthfully, as a downtown resident I much prefer Orlando to the other cities I've lived in (Atlanta, Jacksonville, Nashville, Tampa.) The only things we've been lacking have been retail (which is having problems even in Manhattan) and higher education (which is on the way.) Given I hate cold weather and our record on diversity, there's really not anyplace else I would want to live.

Edited June 3, 2018 by spenser1058

[cwetteland]

23 minutes ago, leondecollao said:

Again, why do we need tall buildings? (Waiting for all you guys to throw stuff at me lol)

i just don’t get the obsession. I love the urban feel in Paris and there’s no super tall in sight.....

You don't  have to go to Paris.  Washington DC is low and urban.  I'm with you.  I don't get the obsession.  

[bqknight]

46 minutes ago, cwetteland said:

You don't  have to go to Paris.  Washington DC is low and urban.  I'm with you.  I don't get the obsession.  

I'm fine with us staying around the same height, just getting denser and have some interesting buildings thrown in there. 

[AndyPok1]

Agreed.  As long as they have some height and aren't mid-rise, I'm fine with the 20-30 story projects we've been getting.  Yeah I'd love something to beat Suntrust one day, but it needs to be visually interesting as well.  Streetscape and urban fabric are 1000x more important than height.

[gibby]

Getting rid of inactive blocks and adding people are my main concerns.  Modera, Radius, Church Street Plaza, Crescent Station. 420, 520 and Citi Tower are great examples.

[I am Reality]

The new, far-right set of lanes on westbound I-4 south of downtown (through Gore, Michigan, OBT) is open.

They did a really nice job.  Looks great and it's a smooth ride. 

Edited June 3, 2018 by I am Reality

[jrs2]

20 hours ago, gibby said:

Getting rid of inactive blocks and adding people are my main concerns.  Modera, Radius, Church Street Plaza, Crescent Station. 420, 520 and Citi Tower are great examples.

Add to that list:

The Sevens

Steelhouse

Skyhouse

NORA

Aspire (1 1/2 level parking deck)

Vue

Residence Inn

Orange Court

Crescent Central

[DreS0803]

No need for super tall buildings if they don't look good. Something like PNC plaza would be very appreciated. Not too tall, but would look so nice in our skyline. 

 

Imagine this on the Garland Parking Lot

Edited June 4, 2018 by DreS0803

[JFW657]

Beautiful building!!!!! 

[I am Reality]

21 minutes ago, DreS0803 said:

No need for super tall buildings if they don't look good. Something like PNC plaza would be very appreciated. Not too tall, but would look so nice in our skyline. 

 

Imagine this on the Garland Parking Lot

Gorgeous building.

PNC's national HQ.  Large companies want signature buildings for HQs.