(Ian Ritter is national online editor for GlobeSt.com/RETAIL.)

ORLANDO-The developer of master-planned community here in the southeast part of the city is planning a 1.5-million-sf retail center to be developed in the style of a town center. Lake Nona Town Center will be part of the 7,000-acre master-planned community called Lake Nona being developed by the locally based Tavistock Group.

The open-air Lake Nona Town Center is being planned for a hybrid of yet-to-be-named lifestyle, big box and department stores. Tavistock management is planning a fall 2008 opening for the first phase of the center, which will consist of the big box-tenants, Jeff Mason, the firm's director of commercial development, tell GSR.

Lake Nona Town Center will by far be Tavistock's largest retail development. The firm could take on a joint-venture partner to assist on the project, but that might not be necessary Mason says. "The team we've assembled has plenty of retail and commercial-development experience." The firm has also developed the Publix-anchored Cascades at Isleworth center, also in Orlando.