Florida Resort targets British buyers

Four Corners project has already pre-sold 625 townhomes and condos.

FOUR CORNERS -- Hoping to capitalize on a lucrative pound-to-dollar exchange rate, an Orlando-based resort company unveiled plans Wednesday for a 122-acre vacation-home development in the growing Four Corners area of northeast Polk County.

American Leisure Real Estate Group Inc. said the Sonesta Orlando at Tierra Del Sol Resort will have 972 townhomes and condos starting at $300,000 each, a 5-acre water park, a private theater, and a 100,000-square-foot clubhouse with restaurants and shops.

Located between Interstate 4 and U.S. Highways 192 and 27 southwest of Walt Disney World, the development's target market are British vacationers interested in second homes.

Of the 972 units, 625 have been sold in advance, mostly to buyers from the United Kingdom, the company said. The project's first phase, consisting of five Mediterranean-style buildings with six floors each and 1,200- to 1,500-square-foot condos, should be open by summer 2006, officials said.

"Nobody predicted it would go this quick," said John T. Mongoven, vice president of American Leisure Real Estate Group, a subsidiary of publicly traded American Leisure Holdings Inc., which also markets property memberships to corporate clients and sells travel services to its members.

British visitors are pouring into vacation homes in the Four Corners area, where Polk, Lake, Orange and Osceola counties meet. In many cases they live in the house for several weeks each year and rent it out the rest of the time, often for two, three or four weeks at a stretch. Some of the units may also be used as time shares.

Real-estate brokers estimate that 80 percent to 85 percent of the new homes going up around U.S. 27 and 192 are owned by Brits. In Polk County, for instance, 3,344 homes zoned for short-term rentals have owners with United Kingdom addresses on file in the county Tax Collector's Office. Polk has about 5,000 short-term rental properties altogether.

Like many resorts in the U.S. 27 corridor in northeast Polk and southeast Lake counties, the Sonesta property fronts the highway and is just a few minutes from Disney World.

"From the tourism side, if those units are used for vacation-rental properties, it will only bolster our portfolio," said Mark Jackson, Polk County's director of tourism and sports marketing. "We don't pay an income tax in Florida and, quite frankly, it's because of the tourism industry. We welcome it."

The new resort is close to two much-larger resorts in Osceola County -- ChampionsGate and the Reunion Resort & Club.

The new resort's showcase amenities include the $20 million clubhouse and the $16 million water park. Designed by KoalaPlay Group, a Denver-based company, the park will have a Tuscan-theme and 44-foot-high water slides.

Sonesta International Hotels Corp., a Boston-based company, will manage the development. American Leisure already owns three other Florida resorts in the Miami area, in Key Biscayne, Coconut Grove and Sunny Isles Beach.

Kelly Griffith can be reached at kgriffith@orlandosentinel.com or 863-422-5908.