Unicorp starts construction on O-Town West near Walt Disney World
A $1 billion-plus, mixed-use project near Walt Disney World has broken ground, bringing hundreds of new residents and thousands of new jobs to the area.
Orlando-based Unicorp National Developments Inc. expects to wrap up site work by this fall on its roughly 80-acre O-Town West project and start vertical construction before the end of the year, President Chuck Whittall told Orlando Business Journal. The project — near Palm Parkway and Daryl Carter Boulevard in Orlando between the Dr. Phillips area and Lake Buena Vista — is expected to feature office, retail, apartments and a hotel.
Whittall said the first element to deliver will be the space for the highly anticipated White Castle and Portillo’s eateries by fourth-quarter 2021. The project’s 250,000 square feet of retail space has been 92% preleased, Whittall said. A general contractor hasn’t been selected for the retail construction, but Unicorp is in discussions with several builders.
Whittall said he and his future tenants are optimistic the Covid-19 pandemic will be less impactful to retail by the time construction ends. “We haven’t lost a single tenant,” he said.
Meanwhile, Altamonte Springs-based Roger B. Kennedy Construction is building the project’s roughly 1,000 apartments with the first residences opening in fourth-quarter 2021 or first-quarter 2022, Whittall said. Every nine months the firm will break ground on roughly 300 units.
Further, construction on Orlando-based Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corp.’s (NYSE: VAC) new roughly $100 million, 300,000-square-foot headquarters is expected to wrap up in summer 2022, Whittall said. The move will create jobs for roughly 1,500 Central Florida workers. Apopka-based Finfrock is the contractor for the nine-story building that also will have an eight-story parking garage.
Finally, it’s not known when Unicorp’s adjacent Zen-branded hotel will break ground, but Whittall said he hopes to finish construction in 2022. He said he’s also working to bring three high-end restaurants near the hotel, including an Asian concept that’s new to this market.
“I don’t know when yet, because the debt market on hotels is non-existent right now,” Whittall said of a hotel construction timeline. “We need Covid-19 to go away, and the debt market for hospitality to open back up.”
Meanwhile, O-Town West stands to benefit from the estimated $50.5 million interchange in the pipeline at Daryl Carter Parkway and Interstate 4. That interchange will help ease traffic flow between I-4 and the mixed-use development, which will make the site more attractive to motorists. That said, construction has not started on that project, but Whittall said it may begin late 2021.
O-Town West is expected to be the biggest construction project for Unicorp in Central Florida. The developer also has several other projects in the works or under construction here, including a $1 billion transformation of Orlando Fashion Square.
“Breaking ground on retail is a feat,” said Whittall, as the shops and restaurant industry has taken a severe hit due to the pandemic. “Lenders are nervous about Covid-19, but they have had faith in us.”