Avalon Park Plans $15M Assisted Living Facility

ORLANDO-The Avalon Park Group recently received preliminary approval from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development of an application for financing of an 80,000-square foot, $15 Million, assisted-living  and “memory care” facility near downtown Avalon Park in east Orlando. The Avalon Park Group hopes to get a loan guaranteed by HUD, and is working with lender  Lancaster-Pollard, based in Atlanta, in order to do this.  If it can get the loan through HUD, says Ross Halle, town planner at the Avalon Park Group, there will no personal guarantees needed. The assisted living development, which is expected to break ground before the end of 2010 and open by the end of 2011, will be the first assisted living facility at Avalon Park, which is a traditional neighborhood design, or TND, a 12-year-old planned community originally planned by architectural and design team Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., of Miami.  The duo planned for homes, stores and office buildings in a style which is reminiscent of traditional small towns. Avalon Park is just one of a number of TNDs in Florida, including Celebration, near DisneyWorld, and Abacoa in Jupiter, Florida. “We wanted to round out our TND,” which is why the Avalon Park Group wanted to build an assisted living facility, says Ross Halle,  town planner at the Avalon Park Group.  The Avalon Park Group has another TND in Tampa, and in Texas. The company’s headquarters is in Orlando. The Avalon Park Group is a global organization, headed up by a Swiss national, Kahli, Beat, president of the 15-year-old company. He chose Orlando, says Stephanie Hodson, marketing coordinator for the Avalon Park Group, because “this is where he found the land.” Although Avalon Park is seeking a HUD guarantee for its financing, the assisted living facility will be market rate, says Halle, without a subsidized component. At Avalon, there will be a continuum of care for seniors, beginning with a facility for active adults to memory care, for those suffering from dementia. Avalon Park is hiring  the New York-based MMR Associates, which is headed up by Dr. Martin Hamburg, who is on Cornell University’s Medical Staff, says Halle. Hamburg has around six of these facilities in Virginia, North Carolina and Florida. Within the TND, there are single family homes and apartments located above shops. There are no for- sale multi-family units. The Avalon Town Center, which is made up of about 100 acres within the 2000-acre development, has a mixed-use downtown commercial center with professional and medical offices, apartments and stores. Avalon Park has a small industrial parcel with a concrete batch plant, although not in the town center.When Avalon Park was first developed, it had 10,000 acres and since then, 8,000 acres were sold to make up an environmental preserve.