When an office park just west of Sea World first went on sale, it was advertised as a tear-down. But the new owners saw things differently.
“The site was originally intended to be a scrape,” said Lucas Brush, vice president of Florida for Holladay Properties, an Indiana-based real estate development firm with an office in Winter Park. “It’s got entitlements for an apartment complex, but we didn’t do that. We bought it and decided to keep the buildings and to not do the apartment project.”
At the end of July, Holladay acquired the cluster of three office/flex buildings – 110,000 square feet in total, on about 10 acres – for $14 million from Innovatus Capital Partners, a New York City-based asset management firm. The buildings are located at 6700, 6751 and 6750 Forum Drive in the Westwood Corporate Center, just southeast of the interchange of the Beachline Expressway and I-4.
Why not knock down the office park and build apartments there instead?
“They’re great buildings. We value the existing tenants and we want them to feel like this is their long-term home, and we want to be able to provide that.” Brush told GrowthSpotter. “There are some great businesses in there that have called it home for many years, and we wanted to keep it that way.”
Holladay Properties has won several national awards for its redevelopment of Select Specialty Hospital at 7450 Sand Lake Commons Blvd. in the Dr. Phillips area. (Courtesy of Holladay Properties)
As for the tenants, they had feared being displaced and were relieved to hear this news. Brush estimates the office park is about 80% occupied.
“A lot of the tenants had found out that it could potentially be scraped, and so they were a little worried that they might have to find a new space for their business,” he said. “Ever since we bought it and told them our plan, they’re all excited, knowing that they don’t have to go anywhere.”
Brush said Holladay acquired the office park because of its strategic location. A press release for the acquisition reads, “With exceptional access to I-4, 528 and Florida’s Turnpike, the property is strategically positioned in the heart of Orlando’s world-class tourist corridor and offers an ideal location for a diverse range of businesses.”
It’s also near the Orange County Convention Center. Added Brush, “It just has superior accessibility throughout Orlando, being right on I-4, right next to the 528, being easily accessible from the Turnpike and super close to the airport. We really like this tourist corridor area. There seems to always be demand for any kind of product type here.”
This new venture will be a lot less demanding than Holladay’s previous project in the area, when it bought a long-closed behavioral health hospital off Turkey Lake Road in 2022 and completely overhauled the 71,000-square-foot, four-story complex. It turned a vacant, run-down building into what is now the central Orlando location of the Select Specialty Hospital chain, with a 31-bed critical illness recovery hospital and a 32-bed acute rehabilitation unit.
That project won multiple awards, including CoStar’s 2026 Redevelopment of the Year for the Orlando region, and the Healthcare Real Estate Insights (HREI) award for National Healthcare Redevelopment of the Year.
“This one (the office park) is less of a redevelopment, more of a kind of strategic acquisition. We are planning capital improvements, but not nearly to the extent of that one (the hospital). That one was a full redevelopment where we took it back to its shell,” Brush said. “With this new one, the buildings are in great shape and we’re just trying to put capital towards where we think it’ll most benefit the existing tenants and to attract the last couple of tenants.”
Specifically, they’re looking at improving landscaping, pavement and some architectural elements, but that’s all still in the works.
Currently, a 7,000-square-foot vacant space is for lease, as well as a smaller space, Brush said.
“Right now, we’re evaluating the current tenants’ needs, just right-sizing everybody,” he said. “There’s some groups in there that we’re expanding and there’s a couple that are downsizing a little bit. We’re just making sure everybody’s space is correct for them to best succeed here.”
The office park’s current roster of tenants is varied and diverse. It includes:
Santarella, a women’s clothing boutique
Casiola Orlando, a vacation home rental agency
the Orlando branch of DLF, a global company that produces and sells turf grass seeds and clover seeds
the home office of Eversmith Brands, a B2B commercial services franchise platform that includes landscaping, plumbing and kitchen exhaust cleaning
Evolution Sensors and Controls, which supplies temperature measurement expertise to engineers and scientists
Supra Tax, an accounting firm that’s part of MolinaUSA, a real estate and immigration advisory service focused on helping Brazilians buy property and move to the Orlando area
Holladay operates out of seven regional offices, including Winter Park. Having completed roughly $2.5 billion in projects, it owns and operates a portfolio across a diverse mix of asset classes including industrial, multifamily, hospitality, retail, healthcare and mixed-use properties.
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