ORLANDO -- One of Orlando's original landmark resorts, the Delta Court of Flags, will be torn down to make way for Citymark at Orlando, a new mixed-use, high-rise residential development located minutes from the front door of Universal Orlando.

The 26-acre parcel where the now-shuttered Orlando resort was located is at 5715 Major Blvd. It was purchased July 29 for $28.4 million, about $1.1 million per acre, by Boca Raton-based E.B. Developers Inc. The land and buildings are currently appraised by Orange County at $8.5 million.

However, the broker says the purchase is all about the opportunity.

"It's a steal," says Ron Muzii, a director in Chicago-based Cohen Financial's Boca Raton office, who brokered the transaction. "The land is far more valuable than the old hotel structures. I think this is one of the most important mixed-use opportunities in Central Florida."

John Markey, senior vice president for E.B. Developers, says he cannot comment on the company's plans for the development until he has briefed Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer on the project.

But the company's Web site indicates Citymark will include 1,300 condominium units and a 500-unit luxury hotel. Renderings show a compound that fills the parcel with several connected, linear, gently curved buildings surrounded by open-air plazas and support structures.

"Its highest and best use was not as a hotel redevelopment, but as residential land, based on our zoning and market research," says Muzii.

The 31-year-old resort had a checkered past. Opened originally in 1974 as a group of several resorts bearing different operating flags, the property was developed in the hotel boom in Central Florida following the Walt Disney World opening.

After years of decline from a midpriced, tourist hotel property into a bargain motel, it was sold in January 2001 for $26.8 million to Winter Park-based Universal Partners LLC, which announced an ambitious $38 million plan for a turnaround from a thrifty overnight stop to a luxury Doubletree resort.

But financial problems and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks quickly spun the resort's plans out of control, and by January 2003, the now-shuttered property was nearly $30 million in debt and foreclosed on by its lenders. It has remained closed and on the market since then.

Muzii says he has had his eye on the property since 1999, when he worked for Promus Hotels Corp. of Memphis. After moving to Cohen, Muzii says he followed the property's demise and contacted Jonathan Roth, the principal at Canyon Capital, who knew of his interest when he was at Promus.

Muzii believes their pitch for residential use was the primary reason Canyon selected them. "Everyone else saw it as a hotel project," Muzii says. "Until we became involved, residential was never in the mix."

 

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