KEEPING THE NEWS LOCAL & THE COMMUNITY CONNECTED.
DECEMBER 2022
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COMMUNITY UPDATES
VOLUME 3 EDITION 12
25 Years: A Reflection and Future Vision An Interview with Avalon Park Founder and Developer Beat Kahli
Precisely 25 years ago this December, marked the beginning of something special for Avalon Park Group. The official groundbreaking of the entrance bridge to Avalon Park Orlando kicked off an adventure of building a town where the mission was established to create a place where everyone can find a place to belong in a community where they could live, learn, work and play. Over the past 25 years, we have seen buildings built, families creating traditions, friendships being forged, and neighbors meeting neighbors and becoming so much more than just neighbors. I had the opportunity to speak with my mentor, the Founder and Developer of Avalon Park, Beat Kahli. Here is what he told me about the past 25 years in our flagship development, Avalon Park Orlando, and what Avalon Park Group can expect in the next 25 years and beyond. Stephanie Lerret:
The agreement left Avalon Park as an 1,860-acre development, which includes, 240 acres of wetlands, 400 acres of upland preserve, 250 acres of man-made lakes, walking/biking trails. Approximately 1% of the plans included 3,400 single-family units, 1,431 multifamily units and approximately half a million square feet of commercial space, remains to be developed today. Stephanie: I have often heard you tell the story of a bridge loan to build “The Bridge” from Alafaya Trail into Avalon Park. Can you elaborate on that monumental event which provided the official start to Avalon Park Orlando? Beat:
We had a dream to build a town where all people, It has now been exactly 25 years since the construction generations, races, and social economics could live, of Avalon Park started in the last quarter of 1997. Can learn, work, and play. And because being a pioneer is rarely easy, it was hard to find money for the you tell our readers more? development of Avalon Park at first. So while the Traditional Neighborhood Design “TND” design Beat Kahli: principals that were planned made sense in pre-war In 1989, we purchased 9,400 acres of land in East development, urban sprawl had become the new norm Orlando, called the Altman Ranch. For generations of development and none of the national homebuilders the land, which stretched all the way from present- wanted to participate and none of the banks wanted to day Wedgefield, was used for farming and hunting. take the risk of lending us money. The entire 9,400 acres (10 times the size of the Orlando downtown area) was zoned for development and had I was on “my knees” going around to the banks in plans that called for a town of almost 100,000 residents, Orlando. Finally, I found a bank, who at the time had millions of square feet of retail and office space, 3 golf just expanded from Alabama to Orlando. The bank was courses and more, and was considered one of the largest willing to lend money for a bridge. The bridge would planned developments in America on the drawing cross a small tributary of the Econlockhatchee River and be at the beginning of Avalon Park Boulevard. In board at the time. banking terms, a bridge loan, means a short-term loan, However, listening to the community, we realized that to bridge a financial gap. For Avalon Park it meant the building such a project would have been a tremendous money to build a true bridge, and construction of it challenge for the environment and public infrastructure. started exactly 25 years ago, just before the holidays in So, through a series of land sales to the St. Johns Water 1997. For the loan, the bank got a mortgage on all the Management District by our development partnership, land, the full personal guarantees of my wife, Jill and an agreement was made to create the Hal Scott Preserve I, and more as collateral. That loan has long since been Park in lieu of commercial real estate development on paid back. Often, when I drive over that bridge, I think 8,900 acres of the original acreage zoned to be Avalon about what would have happened if I would not have Park. Maybe in another generation when most of gotten that “bridge loan.” the land between Tampa and Daytona Beach will be developed, people may be proud of our own “Central Cont... Park” (the Hall Scott Preserve Park), 10 times larger than its Flagship in New York City.