Stevens Plantation’s second senior tower waits on Tallahassee

Stevens Plantation is getting a second affordable senior tower. That is the version of this story most outlets will run, and it is technically true. The version that matters if you live here: the tower is approved, the money is not, and the money is decided in Tallahassee.

American Residential Communities, the Winter Park developer behind the first Madison Grove tower, received conditional approval of its Site Development Plan for a matching 7-story building with 80 age-restricted, affordable apartment homes, as reported by GrowthSpotter. It would rise on the lot just west of tower one, which opened in 2024, and carry one of the company’s signature mosaic murals, 10 feet wide and 30 feet tall, the kind you can spot from a distance across the corridor.

Here is the cliff. The developer applied to the Florida Housing Finance Corporation in 2024 for 9% Low-Income Housing Tax Credits valued at $3.2 million and did not get them. Director of operations Stacy Banach told the city’s Development Review Committee last week that the company is reapplying for the 2026 cycle and is still in the application stages with the state. If the application succeeds, permits get pulled and school impact fee waivers get filed in March or April of 2027. If it fails again, the approved site plan sits.

St. Cloud is not a bystander in this one. The City Council sold the lot to the developer for $300,000 and agreed to provide $460,000 in local matching funds required for the tax credit application. Total construction was estimated at $33.7 million in 2024. Read that plainly: the city is a co-investor in an application it does not control.

The track record cuts in the developer’s favor. This company won the same credits in 2012 and 2014 for the two Madison Crossings towers near U.S. 192 and the Turnpike, then delivered Madison Landing I and II in Orange County in 2021 and 2023. A competent applicant with a built portfolio is exactly who these programs fund. But a failed 2024 round is a reminder of how this actually works: affordable senior housing in this corridor gets built when the state says yes, not when the city does. I would rather say that clearly here than let a rendering do the talking.

Three first-timers are running for St. Cloud’s open Seat 5

Council member Shawn Fletcher is not running to retain Seat 5, and three first-time candidates have qualified for it, per the Osceola News-Gazette: Alex Rodriguez, 38, an HOA board president; Jim Moore, 56, who has spent about 25 years leading one of Central Florida’s busiest Wawa stores and sits on the city’s Finance Committee; and Kirk Zilke, 57, who retired as Deputy Chief of the St. Cloud Police Department after a 35-year career there.

The mechanics: every city of St. Cloud voter votes in this race regardless of party. It appears on the Aug. 18 primary ballot, early voting opens Aug. 7, and if nobody clears 50% plus one vote, the top two meet in a Nov. 3 runoff. All three candidates named managing growth and infrastructure as the city’s most pressing problem. On the property tax amendment headed to the same November ballot, Rodriguez and Moore say yes, Zilke says no.

Why a council race belongs in a development brief: the same five-member council that voted 3-2 this month to continue the Whaley Platt annexation decision, covered in Vol. 19, is adding a new voice. The Aug. 6 special meeting on Whaley Platt happens with the current five. Everything after that gets decided by a council whose newest member campaigned, all three of them, on how St. Cloud handles growth. If you own property in this city, this is the race on your ballot that touches your street.

The Lake Nona West anchor is open

Vol. 7 printed the opening schedule for Lake Nona West back in April: Homesense in May, Target in July, Nordstrom Rack in August. The anchor kept it. Target’s 149,247 SF store held its grand opening Sunday, July 26, on Lake Nona Boulevard east of Boggy Creek Road, joined by Dick’s Sporting Goods and Golf Galaxy, which share 66,562 SF next door.

Nordstrom Rack’s 25,893 SF store opens in August and closes out the summer sequence at the 405,000 SF center. For anyone weighing 34771 or 32827, the “drive to Orlando for everything” objection got measurably weaker this week. That was the whole bet behind this center, and it is landing on schedule.

What to watch

Three things over the next 30 days. Whether the Florida Housing Finance Corporation’s 2026 tax credit cycle timeline firms up for the Madison Grove II application. The Aug. 6 special council meeting on Whaley Platt, followed by the Aug. 18 primary with early voting from Aug. 7. And Nordstrom Rack’s August opening date at Lake Nona West.

Chad