Downtown Kissimmee is a vibrant district of businesses, shopping, eateries, government facilities … and soon-to-be residences.
The first of those place-to-live projects, the Mosaic Apartments Kissimmee, officially opened across Lakeview Drive from the city’s iconic Lakefront with Friday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The development of studio, one and two-bedroom condo units was built on the site of the former Hansel Energy Plant, faced the challenges of hurricanes, COVID-19, a supply and labor shortage and a lack of other comparable projects in the area for the partnership between the city and developers many years in the making to come to fruition.
And as they built it, they will come — some 1,000 housing units over a handful of projects within a mile of the lakefront are under construction. A drive around town shows projects on Lawrence Silas and Martin Luther King boulevards are coming out of the ground, and another development around the Toho Square parking facility will go out for proposals next year.
In two to three years, downtown Kissimmee will look different than now as a fledgling residential center. “We set out to build a higher-density residential market that didn’t previously exist,” Mayor Olga Gonzalez said. “It will serve as a catalyst encouraging others to recognize the potential and opportunity in downtown.” The idea is having full-time residents in the area will bring other business and opportunities. City Manager Mike Steigerwald said residential development like Mosaic bridges a gap between the Lakefront and the downtown district.
Before the living units could go up, the old energy plant had to be decommissioned, torn down, environmentally mitigated. “This was trying,” he said. “This site had historic development underground had to be dealt with. But this sets the stage for a marketplace for multifamily development here. Before this there was not much, if any, higher-density development.”
That made the folks from Mosaic pioneers for downtown.
Mosaic Development Principal Roxanne Williams thanked the city for having the faith to build a “catalytic” project.
“The idea of a former electrical generation plant presented a lot of obstacles,” she said. “Urban renewal unearths surprises from underneath. We’ve enjoyed the relationship (with the city).”
Steigerwald recognizes that a “leap of faith” resulted in a multi-story condo complex with rents from $1,500-1,700 for units of 600-900 square feet, including utilities and amenities like the fitness center use of lockers for food deliveries.
“The goal with this was to incentivize it to get it off the ground, and that will create comparables and a market for other investors to follow,” he said. “And, what’s cool is the developer is the property manager and will have a presence, and understands the market."
