Miami-based One Real Estate Investment has secured a $15.5 million bridge loan on former Disney-owned property with development plans for a 484-unit multifamily and build-to-rent community less than a mile south of Disney’s Animal Kingdom Resort.
The One at Kissimmee is set to rise on 52.5 acres between Sherberth Road and Reedy Creek Boulevard, just south of the Orange County line. Vaster, a Miami-based private lender, closed the financing on March 12. At the same time, OREI amended its deed restriction agreement with Disney to extend the project’s commencement date to Dec. 31, 2027, and the completion date to the end of 2030. The project had approved building permits, but they have since expired.
“In regard to this deal that we closed, the borrower already owned the property. They owned it for a few years,” Vaster Managing Director Zack Simkins told GrowthSpotter. “Their current loan was coming to maturity, but they weren’t ready to break ground or pursue a construction loan in order to build their intended project.”
The loan will give the developer some breathing room, and the ability to buy time and wait for market conditions to improve.
“The strategy here is take the Vaster Bridge loan, stabilize the property in the short term, and wait for macroeconomic factors such as tariffs or construction costs because of energy — with oil pricing and things of that nature — to come down and then be able to seek the construction loan, which would be the exit in this scenario because Vaster is only providing a short-term loan on the land,” Simkins said.
The site sat dormant for nearly a decade after Disney sold it in 2015 for $12.5 million to a developer whose vacation-home concept never broke ground. OREI founder, chairman and CEO Jeronimo Hirschfeld is now repositioning it as a two-phase rental community targeting renters earning 80% to 120% of the area median income, a workforce renter profile undersupplied in the Orlando MSA and eligible for Live Local property tax exemptions.
The 53-acre site is just west of Disney’s All-Star Resort and south of the Orange County line and Animal Kingdom.
Phase 1 would deliver 344 garden-style apartments and carriage homes. Phase 2 would add 140 build-to-rent townhomes. Estimated completion is summer 2028.
Simkins said Osceola County’s impact fees, which are the highest in the state, made the underwriting process “more rigorous than other markets.” But Vaster ultimately felt comfortable with the developer’s track record, the equity partners, and the project’s location.
“Ultimately, what really sold us on it was the close proximity to Disney and having their indirect support in the deal, being the seller and being willing to provide these extensions,” he said. “Providing these opportunities for development rights to be increased shows their belief in the project as well indirectly.”
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