Encore Capital Lands $42M for Orlando Retail Center

The Promenade at Sunset Walk in Kissimmee, Fla., is nearly 100 percent leased. Image courtesy of Encore Capital Management

Encore Capital Management has secured a $42 million bridge loan for The Promenade at Sunset Walk – Margaritaville Resort, a 192,659-square-foot retail center in Kissimmee, Fla., in the Orlando area. Concord Summit Capital sourced the financing, which was provided by BridgeInvest, and advised the borrower. The funds will repay the construction loan and provide the developer with cash out at closing.

Completed in 2019 and 2020, the property comprises 14 buildings on an 11-acre lot, part of the 325-acre Sunset Walk master-planned mixed-use entertainment community. The property is nearly 100 percent leased, with only one vacant pad space. Tenants include Studio Movie Grill, Ford’s Garage, Cold Stone Creamery and BurgerFi.

Located at 3280 Margaritaville Blvd., The Promenade at Sunset Park is near highways 192 and 429 and is roughly 25 miles southeast of Orlando. It is also less than 3 miles from the Walt Disney World Resort, as well as near the Orange Lake Golf Course.

A long-standing financing collaboration

Concord Summit Capital Chairman Kevin O’Grady and Managing Director Justin Neelis represented the borrower and arranged the financing. The two firms have long collaborated, Concord providing financing for all aspects of the Sunset Walk community’s development. That included $54 million for a 300-unit condominium hotel, $98.4 million for the Margaritaville Resort, the project’s centerpiece, and $60.3 million for the Sunset Walk Apartments.

In prepared remarks, Neelis praised the thoughtful design of Sunset Walk as an entertainment destination. Recently, entertainment and experiential retail concepts have been registering great interest, with regional mixed-use venues proving the most attractive, as detailed by Transwestern Managing Director Steve Williamson in a recent interview with Commercial Property Executive.

While retail has historically relied a lot on CMBS, and the source is now effectively frozen, BridgeInvest is able to provide flexible capital that meets sponsors’ needs, Alex Horn, managing partner with the company, told CPE. Horn also noted that BridgeInvest is keen on retail, which has evolved over the past half decade from the outdated malls of the 90s and early 2000s toward open air lifestyle centers, which are resilient to the effects of e-commerce.