Also surfacing in April will be the Birmingham, AL-based REIT's five-story, 155,000-sf office building. No leases have been announced to date. The site at County Road 46A and Interstate 4 is 25 miles north of Downtown Orlando. The REIT's ambitious construction plans for the rest of 2001 and 2002 are to complete some of the 450 planned apartment units and start on a portion of the 420 planned hotel rooms.

Colonial sees a niche in new office development despite third-quarter vacancies of 12.4% in the Lake Mary/Heathrow/Sanford submarket. There was 463,240 sf of new office under construction in the third quarter, according to Grubb & Ellis Co. Net absorption was 83,408 sf for the quarter and 323,180 sf for the nine-month period. The submarket has a total 3.37 million active sf.

The REIT's long-range plan is to house 1.1 million sf of office within Colonial Town Park. Crescent Resources Inc. of Raleigh, NC and Pizzuti Development Co. of Columbus, OH are major players on this submarket's office development turf and will compete headon with Colonial on some of the buildings. Class A asking average rents are $19.78 per sf; class B, $15.81 per sf.