The 30-year-old, 742-employee CNL organization, one of the largest real estate companies in the US, wants to build a 12-story, estimated 300,000-sf tower next to the City Hall building to complement its existing 14-story, 350,000-sf tower where company growth is stymied by a lack of office space, Seneff has told the city.
The new tower would accommodate about 400 new employees and have an estimated hard construction cost of $50 million, or about $150 per sf, area brokers familiar with the plan confirm to GlobeSt.com.
To complete the deal, CNL proposes to give the city a 77,900-sf property, including an aging 80,000-sf, circular-designed CNL Bank building located across Orange Avenue from City Hall. The city would give CNL a city-owned 23,000-sf parking lot north of City Hall.
The city and CNL jointly own the parking garage on the site. The CNL property is valued by the city for tax purposes at $5.4 million; the parking lot, $1.6 million.
The city's long-planned performing arts center would be built on the 73,000-sf site at an undetermined date, city staffers tell GlobeSt.com. The CNL Bank building would be demolished. But the entire deal hinges on the city and state sweetening the pot for CNL by providing a $3.13 million economic incentives package stretched over an estimated 10 years.
If built on a planned 30-month construction track, the new CNL tower would be the first major office building erected Downtown in three years. Area brokers tell GlobeSt.com the tower wouldn't affect existing 18% vacancy levels of class A office space because CNL would be the sole user of the newly constructed space.
Seneff started CNL in 1973 with a $5,000 loan from his father, he likes to recall. By 1986, the company and its subsidiaries had 50 associates and $50 million in assets. Today, CNL Financial Group has 742 associates and assets of $6.5 billion.
"As a home-grown company and one of the largest Downtown employers, we are thrilled to continue to grow and expand at our headquarters location," Seneff says. "This proposed expansion will bring up to 400 new professional level jobs over a five-year period to Downtown Orlando. These are exactly the kind of people who will live, work and play in the Downtown community."
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