Things To Do In SW Florida

Texas-based developer Brent Little believes he’s found the perfect place to put a 605-bed student housing community.

The site is about 3 acres along North Alafaya Trail, less than a mile from the campus of UCF, one of the largest colleges in the country.

But the property isn’t vacant and some demolition work is required before Little’s company Fountain Residential Partners can start construction. The land is currently occupied by a 60-year-old church.

“We are having to get creative,” said Little, CEO and president of Fountain Residential. “There’s no new land, so typically we are tearing something down. Across the country, we’ve torn down everything from K-marts to biker bars to piano shops” to make way for student housing.

A short drive away, another developer is planning to raze a Golden Corral restaurant on State Road 50 and replace it with a 556-bed student housing community.

These are but two examples of projects in the works that aim to bring UCF’s growing student population more off-campus housing options, according to a report in GrowthSpotter. A recent report by Cushman & Wakefield found that Orlando has more off-campus student housing projects in the development pipeline than anywhere else in Florida. read more

Florida is not only richer than many states when it comes to personal wealth, but is more resilient for the time an expected national recession sweeps the country.

“Economically speaking, we have our flashlights, batteries, food and water,” Sean Snaith, an economist at the University of Central Florida, said Thursday upon the release of his quarterly state economic forecast  “Compared to what Florida went through in the two previous recessions, the next recession will be more akin to a tropical depression.”

Snaith’s analogy, of course, is designed to greet the arrival of the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season, which started Thursday.

Many economists and financial analysts believe a U.S. recession of some magnitude is inevitable this year as the Federal Reserve has steadily raised interest rates in a bid to slow the economy and quell the fires of inflation that have driven up prices across the board. Economists and analysts who participated in a recent national Urban Land Institute survey “expect a slowing economy in ’23 and ’24, and a return to stronger growth in ‘25,” according to a ULI summary. “Employment growth is also expected to slow in ‘23 and ‘24, strengthening again in ‘25.” read more

By LISA MASCARO, KEVIN FREKING, STEPHEN GROVES, FARNOUSH AMIRI and MARY CLARE JALONICK (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fending off a U.S. default, the Senate gave final approval late Thursday to a debt ceiling and budget cuts package, grinding into the night to wrap up work on the bipartisan deal and send it to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law before the fast-approaching deadline.

The compromise package negotiated between Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy leaves neither Republicans nor Democrats fully pleased with the outcome. But the result, after weeks of hard-fought budget negotiations, shelves the volatile debt ceiling issue that risked upending the U.S. and global economy until 2025 after the next presidential election.

Approval in the Senate on a bipartisan vote, 63-36, somewhat reflected the overwhelming House tally the day before, relying on centrists in both parties to pull the Biden-McCarthy package to passage — though Democrats led the tally in both chambers. read more