Blossom Park Condominiums, long an eyesore near the Florida Mall and a nuisance for sheriff’s deputies who were called there 200 times over the past five years, will soon face the wrecking ball, according to an agreement signed by its new owners.
    

Built in 1973 as a Days Inn motel, the seven-building condominium complex had racked up over $19 million in code-enforcement and fire-safety fines, most of which are forgiven by Orange County in a pact with New York-based Sands Capital. The company plans to build apartments on the property, located at South Orange Blossom Trail and Landstreet Road. The crime-plagued complex was converted to condominiums in 2003 and then closed in 2016. But even closed, it remained an “attractive nuisance,” luring squatters and transients. A sheriff’s sweep of the condemned properties in Feb. 2020 ousted trespassers in the 345 units. A fire ripped through one of its buildings in March. “That place was awful, horrible,” said Commissioner Maribel Gomez Cordero, whose district includes the property, adjacent to a Cadillac dealership and close to industrial and warehouse operations. “Hopefully some good will come of this,” she said of the plan to redevelop the seven-acre site.

Blossom Park, a former Days In motel now in ruins, has been forgiven of millions of dollars of Orange County code-enforcement fines to allow for new owner Sands Capital to tear down and redevelop the property.

Cordero said the rundown complex was an unsightly welcome for arriving tourists and conventioneers headed to hotels and theme parks as they would pass the rotting, graffiti-tagged buildings as they drove the Bee Line Expressway from Orlando International Airport.

The former motel was a haven for crime until code violations shuttered it.

In 2014, Orange County sheriff’s deputies investigated three murders there.

A deputy’s report in one of the killings described Blossom Park at the time as “a high drug area, heroin in particular...”

Now, signs on fencing encircling the complex warn that the property is unsafe for human habitation.

Landstreet Project LLC, an affiliate of Sands Capital, bought the seven-acre property for $4 million in March, according to a report by GrowthSpotter. The seller was listed as Harry Collison Jr., termination trustee for the Blossom Park Condominium Association, Inc.

Orange County Property Appraiser Amy Mercado confirmed the sale price.

Development consultant Jim Hall said the company is planning a community of 250 apartments in mid-rise buildings, typically four to six stories high. Hall submitted a request last week to the county to rezone the property from industrial use to a mixed-use planned development.

“It’s a great location for apartments,” he said, noting its close proximity to bus stops, the Florida Mall and other employment centers. “There are so many jobs around there, adding some mix-use properties makes all the sense in the world.”

In November, Sands Capital began negotiating with the county to reduce accrued fines as part of an action plan to knock down the eyesore and redevelop the site. The company agreed to get permits within 45 days and finish demolition within nine months.

The agreement, approved by a code-enforcement magistrate, settles all code and fire-safety cases for $500,000.