OVIEDO, Fla. – After years of planning and negotiations, the Oviedo Mall has secured all required agreements to move forward with approximately 700 apartments on mall property — a milestone its director of development calls a major step in a sweeping transformation.
“Everything’s been executed, signed and approved,” said Kevin Hipes, director of development for Oviedo Mall Holding LLC. “We are for sure getting two sets of apartments.”
Phase I: Macy’s comes down, 400 apartments go up
Picerne Development Corporation of Florida closed on the 15-acre former Macy’s parcel in late June and has already received site plan approval, according to Hipes. The company is now preparing construction plans to submit for building permits and is expected to apply for a demolition permit for the former Macy’s building within 90 days.
Hipes said the timeline could move quickly once permits are secured.
“The Macy’s comes down — that’ll probably happen within a few months because they can probably get a demo permit,” he said. “Then 400 or so apartments will go up. Probably take six months to get permits because they have to draw plans, and then probably a year to build, six months to lease up. So, we’re a year and a half to two years away.”
In addition to the apartments, Hipes says Picerne has committed to building a new mall entrance on the east side of the property, where the Macy’s store currently stands. The entrance is designed to give residents walkable access to the mall’s retail shops, restaurants, entertainment venues and other services.
“These businesses [are] very excited — they’ve been waiting for years,” Hipes said.
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Phase II: West side development adds 325 more units
Woodfield Development Co. is under contract on a 14-acre parcel on the west side of the mall and plans to build approximately 325 market-rate apartments in Phase II. The company is currently working with the city to obtain site plan approval before finalizing construction plans and applying for permits.
“That would only be about a year behind [Phase I],” Hipes said. “And we’re going to create some sort of a connection — like a walkway, maybe — because that’s further from the mall.”
Phase II construction is expected to begin in late 2027 or early 2028, with apartments potentially leasing up and fully operational by mid-2028.
A complicated path to approval
Hipes said the long road to this milestone came down to one central challenge: Oviedo Mall, like most regional malls, is not owned by a single entity.
“Most people don’t realize malls are not wholly owned by one entity,” he said. “That’s five different entities that you have to bring together and negotiate with — development agreements, cross-access agreements — because each development impacts the other property.”
Mayor Megan Sladek confirmed the city’s approvals were not the holdup.
“The city actually approved this back in 2020 — it was the first time these ideas started being discussed at City Hall and, for the most part, approved,” she said. “There’s nothing new that has happened with the city related to this property. The new part is that the owners of the property have decided to let things move forward. So that has really been the holdup.”
Hipes said he has been working toward this vision for more than a decade.
“I came up with this idea 12 years ago, before everybody was putting apartments in malls,” he said. “And it wasn’t easy because, initially, even the city didn’t want apartments here. They wanted more retail on the outside areas.”
He said the rise of e-commerce and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic shifted that thinking.
“Then they realized that was different,” he said. “And then I had to explain to the city first, and then to the residents, that apartments at the mall is the place where they should be.”
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Traffic concerns addressed
Hipes pointed to the mall’s existing infrastructure as reason to believe the development will have minimal impact on surrounding neighborhoods.
“We knocked down no trees. We repurposed old defunct retail. We’re right on [State Road] 417. We’re in the commercial district. Three signalized intersections. No access to local neighborhoods and no trees coming down,” he said.
Mayor Sladek echoed that sentiment, noting the mall property was originally built with high-volume use in mind.
“The main concern is always traffic, but this was originally developed, it’s a development of regional impact — and that is a term of art from Florida statute,” she said. “So, when it was developed, all of the roads — we got the double-lane road out there, we’ve got the traffic signals already, we have an elaborate stormwater system, plenty of utility capacity. It was all done before anybody broke ground on anything in this area. So, this is about the best place it could happen.”
Economic impact for Oviedo
Mayor Sladek said the redevelopment is expected to boost city tax revenues.
“Already, this area is one of the biggest tax-producing places in the entire city,” she said. “So, once it converts to more productive, occupied residential, that tax revenue will go up even more to help offset the cost of the lower costs being paid by residents who live in single-family neighborhoods.”
Hipes added that the Sears building — currently vacant — represents another major opportunity, and that he plans to launch an aggressive leasing campaign now that the apartment deals are in place.
“I’d love to bring in a big employer that will employ 3[00] or 400 people — maybe a high-tech [company],” he said. “We have no jobs in Oviedo. Oviedo is a bedroom community. We need jobs here.”
Market-rate units, not luxury or age-restricted
Hipes addressed community questions about whether the units would be age-restricted or upscale, saying the decision ultimately comes down to market forces.
“These are what they call market-rate apartments,” he said. “A lot of people are saying, ‘What happened to the 55-plus? What happened to this? What happened to that?’ It’s all market driven. These developers are going to spend $100 million building that thing. They do their own analysis — they’re going to build what they believe is going to be successful.”
The bigger vision: Eat, sleep, work, play
Hipes said the apartments are just the beginning of a broader plan to reposition Oviedo Mall as a mixed-use regional destination — and he has a concept for what comes next.
“Apartments isn’t going to fix the mall entirely,” he said. “It’s the first stage to creating a first-class mixed-use — eat, sleep, work, play — regional destination, which is the plan.”
Mayor Sladek noted the mall is already drawing visitors from beyond Oviedo’s borders.
“I’ve got to share, sitting over here having coffee with people who are coffee tourists — they came all the way here from Volusia County because they heard that our mall food court, Cafe Natura, had great coffee, and it was confirmed,” she said. “It’s the weirdest and most interesting mall in the entire state of Florida. If you haven’t visited lately, come on over.”
Right place for growth
Hipes acknowledged not everyone in the community embraces the idea of more apartments, but said the mall property is the most logical location for new residential density.
“You’re going to get growth whether you like it or not,” he said. “Why not put the growth where you really should put it and have it also turn around your mall? It’s really the right thing to do.”
He said he welcomes conversations with any resident who has questions or concerns.
“I’m willing to talk to anybody, any resident who wants to hear the full plan,” he said. “I’m a very transparent guy — I’m the only developer on the planet who talks on Facebook and tells everybody what I’m doing on day one.”