Crescent Buys 2 Acres in Downtown Orlando’s Central Station

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

It’s a small purchase, but it moves a major mixed-use development in downtown Orlando a step closer to fruition. Crescent Communities, of Charlotte, N.C., has purchased a two-acre site in Orlando’s CBD from RIDA Development Corp., Crescent announced Wednesday.

Construction will begin later this year on Crescent Central Station, a six-story, 275-unit luxury multi-family project at the site, which is currently vacant.

RIDA, based in Houston, is the overall developer of the 5.6-acre, $200 million Central Station project. The transit-oriented development will eventually include, in addition to the multi-family building, a 126-room select-service hotel, two office buildings totaling 260,000 square feet and a one-acre park, according to reports in the Orlando Business Journal.

The Central Station site is adjacent to the Orange County Courthouse and the Bank of America Tower, and to the CBD’s main station on the 61-mile SunRail commuter train system, the first phase of which is scheduled to open in 2014. The SunRail station will be an addition to the LYNX Central Station, which is the hub of Orlando’s LYNX bus network and serves nearly 30 bus routes.

HKS Architects Inc. is Central Station’s master planner and architect.

Crescent Central Station will feature a combination of studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, with roughly 70 percent of the units as studios and one-bedrooms, a Crescent spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive. The building will also include 12,000 square feet of retail space along Orange Avenue, and a parking deck will have space for 400 cars. 

Amenities will include a rooftop sky deck, double-level fitness center, bike repair and pet care, as well as a “demonstration kitchen,” a commercial-grade kitchen suitable for special events such as cooking classes and wine tastings.

The building’s architect is Lord Aeck & Sargent, of Atlanta.