Celebration town center is sold

Celebration Company, a real estate development division of the Disney Company, sold the Celebration, Florida, town center Jan. 21 to Lexin Capital, a New York-based private investment firm. Neither party disclosed the price. However, GlobeSt.com, a real estate service, said Orlando brokers estimated the sale at approximately $42.3 million. The town center, begun in the mid-1990s when few people lived in the 4,900-acre Orlando area development, had started to do well financially, according to Charles Bohl, director of the Knight Program in Community Building at the University of Miami. “Average sales per square foot passed the $300 level (which is the baseline for Class A malls),” Bohl noted. GlobeSt.com reported that the 18-acre Market Street component — purchased by Lexin four months after the 159-acre Celebration Golf Club was sold to CS Golf Partners LLC of Boston — “comprises 94,000 square feet of office space (93 percent leased); 105,744 square feet of retail (16 shops 100 percent leased, six full-service restaurants [and a movie theater]); and 105 apartments (96 percent rented).” The acquisition by Lexin also includes 6.8 acres yet to be developed. Maintaining design standards Lexin promised to uphold the architectural design standards established by Celebration Company and to continue Celebration’s community events, such as Founders’ Day and July 4 festivities. Disney was known for meticulous management of the town center, which Bohl characterizes as “a dining destination anchored by some wonderful public space and punctuated with buildings by some presumably famous architects.” The best town center buildings, Bohl believes, are the “background buildings” framing either side of Market Street, by Cooper Robertson & Partners and Robert A.M. Stern Architects. Residents would like the town center to add retail that serves their basic needs, such as a hardware store and a video store. Celebration is now home to 8,000 of a projected 12,000 residents. “Celebration has broken its home sales record each year, surpassing $120 million in new home sales in fiscal year 2003,” the Celebration Company said in a press release. The company still has 1,200 acres of land zoned for office, retail, and general commercial use. However, the sale of the town center means that Disney’s long-anticipated phaseout has begun. The New York Times reported that Disney has sold over $600 million in residential property, “with the average house costing more than $300,000.” Last September, representatives of the homeowners began occupying the majority of the seats on the board of the Celebration Residential Owners’ Association, outnumbering the company’s representatives. To serve the growing population, Celebration High School, designed by Graham Gund Architects of Boston, opened last August. Operated by Osceola County School District, the $32.7 million, 300,000-square-foot school was designed, the architect says, as “a series of neighborhoods.” Its segments, clad in precast concrete panels, are linked by shaded arcades. The original Celebration School, now relegated to kindergarten through eighth grade, is in the town center. The new high school, on 36 acres, is nowhere near so central. “You have to drive there,” says Bohl.