In partnership with the City of Orlando and faith-based community initiative Hope Center West, Wendover Housing Partners recently began construction of senior affordable housing community Legacy Place.
Located on Piedmont Street, just west of John Young Parkway in the Clear Lake neighborhood, the development will include 100 units for seniors ages 55 and older.
The Altamonte Springs-based developer was joined by Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Orlando City Commissioner Bakari F. Burns and Archbishop Allen T.D. Wiggins of Hope Center West to celebrate the project with a groundbreaking ceremony Friday morning.
“As an age-friendly community, the city is always working to make sure we have safe options that are available and affordable to older adults,” Dyer said. “This guides our development strategy.”
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 2026 Gap Report, Orlando faces the largest affordable housing shortage in the country.
For every 100 extremely low-income, or ELI, renter households – those earning at or below 30% of the area median income – there are only 13 affordable and available rental units. More than 80% of ELI renters in Orlando are extremely cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than half of their incomes on rent and utilities.
Utilizing funds from the Orlando Housing Ready Project, the city’s framework for doling out financial resources to increase affordable housing stock, Dyer said the City of Orlando is contributing $600,000 to support development of Legacy Place.
Orlando-based DeAngelis Diamond will handle construction of the project, with financing provided by Goldman Sachs and Berkadia Commercial Mortgage.
According to Wendover COO Ryan von Weller, Legacy Place will receive tax credits from the Florida Housing Finance Corporation through Goldman Sachs. The development is Goldman Sachs’ first project in Florida as a tax credit equity investor, von Weller said.
With the community set to be developed within the Hope Center West footprint, Wendover and the City of Orlando collaborated with Wiggins to bring Legacy Place to life as a reflection of the growing “YIGBY” (Yes In God’s Back Yard) movement that gained further support from the Florida Legislature earlier this year for loosened zoning regulations on church-owned land.
“Faith in action means utilizing our God-given gifts, abilities and resources to build better neighborhoods and stronger communities,” Wiggins, who also serves as pastor of Hope Church, said in a statement. “Legacy Place is a reflection of what is possible when we come together to address the housing challenge and create a place where dignity, stability, and hope can flourish.”
Given the lack of affordable housing, especially for seniors, von Weller said Wendover is excited to fill that niche and provide a home for older adults with families or who may still be in the workforce.
While a number of future Legacy Place tenants may be chosen from the Hope Church congregation, von Weller said most of the individuals or families accepted into the development will come from a three-mile radius that includes downtown and the surrounding John Young Parkway area.
“We just really felt like this venue for this product type, in conjunction with the church and the church’s congregation, there’s a lot of multi-generational families in this community,” he said. “This is a very tight-knit area. Now there will be places for mom and dad and grandma and grandpa to live now without having to be displaced somewhere else or live with their kids.”
Legacy Place will be Wendover’s first project built with a steel frame, von Weller said, using a build system from Longwood-based Vitruvian Steel.
“This product is manufactured in Sanford, so it’s a local company, but [Vitruvian Steel] invested heavily in the machinery to design and build these frames,” he said. “They come out on a pallet, and they’re basically installed in segments, so it’s supposed to speed up our install in framing. Hopefully, that’ll get the project online earlier and have people move in earlier.”
According to von Weller, development of Legacy Place is anticipated to cost approximately $35 to $40 million, and the community will be built over the next 12 to 14 months.
Wendover has around five projects underway in 2026, including Carisbrooke Terrace and Harwick Place in Sanford, which are already funded.
The company is expected to wrap construction later this year on Catchlight Crossings, the 1,000-unit mixed-income community built on land donated by Universal, next door to the Orange County Convention Center campus.
Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at jwilkins@orlandosentinel.com or 407-754-4980. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook and LinkedIn.
