- October 8, 2024
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The Palm Coast Planning Board has approved in a 6-0 vote a 264-unit rental community in Town Center, just north of the Town Center Boulevard and Central Avenue roundabout.
The board approved a technical site plan for the development, which will next go before the City Council for approval. The development is owned by Hillpointe, LLC and extends from Central Avenue to about one-fifth mile north of Imagine School, city planner Bill Hoover said in the April 17 planning board meeting.
The application plans for the 264 apartments units to be divided among 10, three-story buildings, with each building having 24 or 36 units. Daniel Welch, representing the applicant through the design firm England-Thims & Miller, said all of the apartments will be two-bedrooms.
The development sits on 67.81 acres of land, but 21 acres are wetlands that cannot be built on. Hoover said the applicant intends to include not only a clubhouse but walking paths within the development for residents.
The apartments will have 88 garages available for rent at an additional cost, Welch said. Alongside the parking spaces, the plans include 53 bicycle spaces.
Board member David Ferguson also expressed concerns about the large development being built so close to Imagine School at Town Center, and asked if there were any plans to expand the road there. Ferguson said he's personally been caught on the two-lane road in the long line of parents waiting to pick up their children at dismissal from Imagine School.
Hoover said that Town Center Boulevard does not need an expansion but that the city is aware of the backlog from Imagine School at certain times during the day.
City staff is looking into the issue and trying to work with the school to improve circulation, Deputy Chief Development Officer Ray Tyner said.
"So we are working on it," Tyner said. "I know our traffic engineer is also looking, not just at this project, but looking at other [similar] projects within this region."
This is not the only apartment complex planned for the area. Directly neighboring Imagine School along Lake Avenue, the Palm Coast City Council approved an application for a 300-unit apartment complex last September.
That complex — called The Legacy at Palm Coast — will be on the vacant 27-acre lot at Town Center Boulevard and the north side of Lake Avenue, across from the school. It will have a main entrance on Town Center Boulevard and a secondary entrance on Lake Avenue.
The proposed apartments on Town Center Boulevard would be Hillpointe's second apartment complex in Palm Coast. Board Vice Chair Sandra Shank asked Welch about how Hillpointe intends to price the apartments and if there has been any consideration given to reserving some units as affordable senior housing.
“We have a critical need for senior housing here,” Shank said.
Welch said the apartments will set a market rate, similar to the Pine Lakes Parkway apartments, where the lower-end model is between $1,400-$1,500, and the high end models increase from there. The Pine Lakes apartments opened at the tail-end of 2023, and have already leased multiple units, he said.
"Typically, we expect about a year to fully lease up or developments and we're well as-scheduled on that," Welch said.
