{"id":217431,"date":"2026-04-03T12:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T12:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/217431\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T12:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T12:21:07","slug":"entrepreneur-adds-25m-piece-in-downtown-winter-garden-buying-spree-orlando-sentinel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/217431\/","title":{"rendered":"Entrepreneur adds $25M piece in downtown Winter Garden buying spree \u2013 Orlando Sentinel"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Central Florida entrepreneur has spent $24.5 million to acquire\u00a0The Exchange<\/a> building in downtown Winter Garden, the largest addition yet\u00a0to his growing portfolio of city properties.<\/p>\n

James Larweth purchased the three-story, mixed-use office and retail property at 270 West Plant St. which includes a Kelly\u2019s ice cream shop and Foxtail Coffee\u00a0from longtime locals the Keating family, according to Foundry Commercial<\/a>. Larweth is the founder of pharmaceutical rebate management company Anton Rx, which has offices in downtown Winter Garden.<\/p>\n

County property records show the owner, Crazy Plant Holdings LLC, an entity tied to Timothy M. Keating III, sold the property to Legacy Exchange LLC, which is tied to Larweth, in an all-cash deal, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.<\/a> The Keatings had bought the .75-acre parking lot site from the city in 2019 and constructed the current 42,800-square-foot Class A building, completing it in 2021.<\/p>\n

Efforts to reach Larweth were not successful.<\/p>\n

Locals in the west Orange County city, which is about 15 miles west of Orlando, have been dismayed by the heavy recent turnover in their quaint downtown district. Nine other commercial buildings downtown, eight on West Plant\u2019s red brick streets, have been sold for millions<\/a>. County property records and state business records show several of the purchasing entities\u00a0are connected to Larweth.<\/p>\n

Those entities have spent nearly $21 million on four properties downtown,\u00a0including $10.3 million on the Edgewater Hotel <\/a>built in 1926. Larweth also bought Chef\u2019s Table<\/a>, the acclaimed restaurant occupying the hotel\u2019s first floor.<\/p>\n

Some shop owners in buildings he bought said they\u2019ve been notified by the new owner\/landlord that their leases will not be renewed. Three Birds Caf\u00e9<\/a> closed Feb. 26, and the popular lunch spot at 2 W. Plant Street said on Facebook \u201cwe were not granted an extension or the opportunity to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larweth has met a couple of times with city officials, though city manager Jon Williams has said he hasn\u2019t disclosed any specific plans for his portfolio of downtown buildings.<\/p>\n

Mayor John Ress told GrowthSpotter on Wednesday that he\u2019s talked with Larweth a couple of times over the last month or so. He said a lot of the properties Larweth purchased are older, and he plans to refurbish them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people concerned because they love our downtown and they want it to stay like it is,\u201d the mayor said. \u201cWhat he\u2019s done to start with, he\u2019s fixed up very nice and done a good job, and I have no reason to believe that won\u2019t continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AnAn inside look at The Exchange, a three-story mixed-use building with about 42,000 square feet of space in downtown Winter Garden. The building has a diverse mix of professional service firms, lifestyle tenants and destination retail operators. (Image courtesy of Foundry Commercial)<\/p>\n

Ress said Larweth seems very \u201cpro Winter Garden\u201d despite not living in the city. An online search turns up a Windermere address for Larweth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you talk to him, he certainly gives every indication that he loves Winter Garden and wants to keep that charm,\u201d the mayor said, adding that Larweth has been active in the city for decades.<\/p>\n

According to Foundry Commercial, Larweth plans to maintain his properties\u2019 strong tenant mix and is committed to stable rents in the near term.<\/p>\n

Ken Pozek founded Pozek Group<\/a>, a team of residential real estate specialists, and The Orlando Real<\/a> website, which specializes in Orlando-area theme parks, lifestyle and residential real estate. His firm rents about 2,000 square feet in The Exchange, has been there almost four years, and has another year left on its lease.<\/p>\n

He told GrowthSpotter on Wednesday he\u2019s received correspondence relating to the sale but has not talked with Larweth \u2014 although he has reached out to him. He said he\u2019s happy renting there but is outgrowing the space and looking to expand in the building or move.<\/p>\n

He said Plant Street and the feeder roads leading to it \u201care definitely hot\u201d in the city. Many new buildings are rising in the downtown district along with the property values, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat downtown area, when I first signed my lease in The Exchange, none of that was around,\u201d Pozek said. \u201cFrom what I can see, I can go on Park Ave. in Winter Park cheaper than I can go on Plant Street in Winter Garden for office space right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Exchange is fully leased and has several eateries on the ground floor: Foxtail Coffee, The Hangry Bison, Kelly\u2019s Homemade Ice Cream, Mangoni Italian Market Pizza, and Sweetland Bakery & Tea House, as well as retail shops (Apricot Lane Boutique, LiveTrends Boutique) and DIY candle-making experience and shop Artifact Candle Foundry.<\/p>\n

Positioned along the highly walkable Plant Street corridor, The Exchange benefits from consistent foot traffic driven by the popular Winter Garden Farmers Market<\/a> and its proximity to the West Orange Trail<\/a>. City Hall is located across the street<\/a> from it.<\/p>\n

Foundry put the property on the market in January. The firm\u2019s Investment Advisory Group facilitated the sale, led by Associate Chris DeMartino, with support from IAG Partner and Managing Director Rick Helton, alongside North Florida team members Dale Peterson, Joe Chick and Christine Mansour.<\/p>\n

Brian Bell can be reached at\u00a0bbell@orlandosentinel.com<\/a>. Have a tip about Central Florida development? Email Newsroom@GrowthSpotter.com<\/a>. Follow GrowthSpotter on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>. Stephen Hudak contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Central Florida entrepreneur has spent $24.5 million to acquire\u00a0The Exchange building in downtown Winter Garden, the largest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[558,28,114,1335,139,141,140,480,109,76686,25863],"class_list":{"0":"post-217431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-orange-county","12":"tag-orlando","13":"tag-orlando-headlines","14":"tag-orlando-news","15":"tag-real-estate","16":"tag-social","17":"tag-social-business","18":"tag-winter-garden"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}