Sunbridge’s front door is under contract for retail

The corner where Cyrils Drive meets Narcoossee Road is the front door to Sunbridge. Publix took the south side of that corner in late 2024. This week we learned who wants the north side. Orlando-based Leaders Real Estate & Development is under contract on the 9.35-acre lot directly north of Cornerstone at Narcoossee, per GrowthSpotter reporting by Laura Kinsler. Nothing is filed yet. What exists is a concept plan, a pre-application meeting with Osceola County, and one large problem the developer has to solve before any of it becomes real.

The concept, presented by Leaders project manager Michael Grooms to the county’s development review committee, puts a 40,000-square-foot fitness center at the back of the site as the anchor, a fuel station and convenience store fronting Narcoossee, two multi-tenant buildings with drive-through endcaps, and two outparcels. The parcel sits inside a Planned Development already entitled for commercial use. It carries a grocery restriction, which makes sense given the Publix next door, but most other retail and office uses are allowed. The dirt itself has a history: Maury L. Carter & Associates developed Cornerstone, sold it to Publix last year, and sold this north parcel in 2023 for $4.5 million to a company tied to Kissimmee-based Leland Enterprises, a multifamily firm. Leaders is now buying from that owner.

Here is the problem. A county-owned stormwater pond sits at the north end of the property, on the Narcoossee frontage. Leaders wants to buy the pond site from the county and move the pond to the east side of the parcel, which would free up the road-facing land the tenants are asking for. Vince Hrjapins, the firm’s vice president of real estate, called the pond acquisition essential and said the users the firm is talking to want to be on Narcoossee because of the traffic. Community Development Director Ray Stangle told GrowthSpotter the idea has been done before but requires a separate meeting with the county’s transportation and real estate staff, a purchase from the county, appraisals, and a long list of permits, because that pond drains both Cyrils and Narcoossee.

I would read this plainly. A gym, a gas station, and drive-throughs at the entrance to a 24,000-acre master plan is the kind of daily-errand retail Weslyn Park residents currently drive to Lake Nona or Saint Cloud Marketplace for. It is also a plan that depends on a land deal with the county that has not started. Under contract is not closed, a pre-application is not a filing, and a pond swap is a negotiation. If the county says no on the pond, the site plan gets redrawn or the deal gets renegotiated. I will report the filing when there is one.

The same developer closes across from the Walmart site

Vol. 18 covered the land deal that set up Saint Cloud’s east side: Walmart and developer Ferber paid a combined $13.3 million for 40 acres at U.S. 192 and Puffin Road, approved for 250,000 square feet of retail anchored by a 187,400-square-foot supercenter. What is new this week is what is happening across the street. Leaders paid $3.5 million for 3.16 acres directly opposite the Walmart site, per GrowthSpotter. The lot has 550 feet of frontage on a stretch of 192 that carries about 41,500 vehicles a day. It is approved for up to 8,000 square feet of retail, and the firm hopes to break ground before the end of the year.

Leaders is not new to this corner. In 2025 the firm bought the one-acre lot next door at Saint Cloud Marketplace and is finishing a three-tenant building leased to Chase, Operation Dental, and Potbelly. Hrjapins told GrowthSpotter the firm did not know Walmart was coming when it put the second parcel under contract, and that it had leases in place before closing. The signed tenants, by category: a national coffee brand, a pizza user, a bagel user, a dentist, and an automotive repair shop, plus a sit-down restaurant and a medical user. Names have not been released. I am not going to guess them.

The Walmart side of the street has its own new detail. City spokesperson Maryemma Bachelder told GrowthSpotter the developer has identified users for the center’s eight outparcels, including a 40,000-square-foot health and fitness club, a 3,300-square-foot bank, a 10,110-square-foot fast-food drive-through, and a 2,500-square-foot coffee and donut shop with a drive-through. Puffin Road gets extended north to Lillion Lee Road with a new traffic signal at 192. One note: a 40,000-square-foot fitness user shows up in both the Walmart outparcel list and the Narcoossee concept plan. That may be one operator shopping two sites or two operators chasing the same box size. Nobody has said, so neither will I.

Seat 5 comes down to one vote

Vol. 23 reported that second place in the Saint Cloud City Council Seat 5 primary was separated by three votes, with a recount coming. The hand recount finished Saturday, Aug. 22, and the margin shrank to a single vote, per Central Florida Public Media. Alex Rodriguez holds the second spot and advances to the Nov. 3 runoff against first-place finisher Kirk Zilke, the city’s former deputy police chief. Jim Moore is out by one ballot. In the Osceola School Board District 3 race, the machine recount left Alyssa Noel’s lead over Natalie Guzman unchanged, and Noel takes the seat. The state certifies the results Thursday.

The Seat 5 winner in November joins a council that just spent the summer voting 3-2 on Whaley Platt and Tranquility. Growth is the issue in this race. Both remaining candidates listed traffic, infrastructure, and managing growth as top priorities in their Osceola News-Gazette candidate profiles. One vote decided who gets to make that case in November. If you live in the city and did not vote in August, that is the margin.

What to watch over the next 30 days

On Narcoossee, the tell is a county agenda item on the stormwater pond sale, or a formal site plan filing with Osceola County. Either one moves this from concept to project. On 192, watch for a site development permit from the city and for the Chase, Operation Dental, and Potbelly building to open next door. On Seat 5, certification lands Thursday; the runoff campaign starts the day after.

Chad