Chicago JV Plans Tallest Downtown Condo

ORLANDO-Riding the unprecedented Downtown condo development wave, Chicago-based Churchill Development Group and Westminster Partners have filed plans with the city showing a tentative first-quarter 2005 ground-breaking for the Vue at Lake Eola, a 35-story, 323-unit structure with 6,000 sf of retail, a 660-space parking garage and a 3,000-sf health club.

The building, at an estimated 350 ft in height, would be the tallest residential structure in Central Florida and the second tallest building Downtown, next to the 442-ft, 35-story SunTrust Center office site, area brokers familiar with both projects tell GlobeSt.com.

Local construction industry estimators tell GlobeSt.com the undertaking will probably be built at a total hard cost of $75 million. They base their estimate on a $200,000-per-unit hard cost for the condo units alone. At that cost, the Vue will be one of the most expensive condo communities built to date in the metro area, local planners who have worked on comparable ventures tell GlobeSt.com.