In a crowded, competitive and bumpy market, residential developers and builders do their best to stand out in a sea of sameness. Some bet that they’ll seize a competitive edge by leaning into walkable communities with “third spaces,” ones where residents can easily connect with one another and feel a sense of belonging.
Wyld Oaks, an upcoming mixed-use community near Orlando, Florida, where construction is now underway, will put that thesis to the test. In October, Hathaway Development became the first developer to begin horizontal construction at Wyld Oaks, where it is building 325 apartment units.
That’s for starters. Once fully built out, the community is expected to have 6,000 multifamily units and a small adjoining single-family portion with fewer than 100 homes.
Residential, mind you, is only part of the plan. Wyld Oaks is designed around a walkable main street anchored by a large park and 300,000 square feet of retail space. Elsewhere in the community, the master plan calls for two hotels, a medical campus, 1.5 million square feet of industrial and distribution space, multiple other parks, an outdoor concert venue and a gas station.
For Wyld Oaks master developer Joseph Beninati, the goal is to create a walkable, mixed-use community that functions like a complete neighborhood, with daily needs all within walking or biking distance.
“Could you take your car? Of course you can,” Beninati said in an interview with HousingWire TBD. “But the option to walk is going to be there.”
With walkability at its core, Wyld Oaks stands apart from the overwhelming majority of new suburban development in the region, which is largely car-centric.
Getting the project off the ground has been difficult, however. The original multifamily development, which only just broke ground, was slated to begin in late 2024 or early 2025. The delay resulted from a challenging local multifamily capital environment that has plagued many other Sun Belt markets.
Building a community that stands out
The 215-acre Wyld Oaks community is located in Apopka, a high-growth suburb of Orlando that saw its population grow by roughly 20% between 2020 and 2025. Despite this growth, and the rapid growth of adjacent communities, there remain relatively few walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods for residents and visitors alike.
This need in the market was among the top considerations for Wyld Oaks, which was designed with walkability, livability and community in mind.
“It all starts with density, and trail systems and parks, and having everything closer to one another as opposed to further apart. We have multifamily, and we’re working on retail, food and beverage, coffee stores and grocery stores, all within walking distance,” Beninati said. “Run the list. [Residents] need fitness. They need healthcare. They need a convenience store and daily conveniences, dry cleaning, hair salons and barber shops.”
All of the commercial uses designed within easy walking distances in the community will work together to keep residents in the neighborhood, bring in employees to work at the industrial park and various businesses and draw in visitors to enjoy the local shops, restaurants and parks. Once fully built out, Beninati expects, or at least hopes, that Wyld Oaks will become a top-tier regional destination.
“Economic activity begets economic activity. If you’re bringing your kids to the dentist, that allows you to also maybe do a little grocery shopping. Or if you’re going to work out and you’re with some friends, maybe you’re going to go out and have a drink or supper together. When everything is in one place, it allows that to happen,” Beninati explained.
Beninati envisions a neighborhood where residents can get outdoors and meet one another, whether at local parks, restaurants, the community’s future farmers market or other events. For visitors, he wants a community that is memorable and draws people back in.
“For me, some of the softer things would be, are prom pictures getting taken and wedding pictures getting taken there? Or is it a meaningful place that the community rallies around? Is there a Christmas tree, and is there going to be a Halloween event for the kids? Things like that are what make a community something that is memorable,” he said.
Although Wyld Oaks is primarily multifamily and non-residential, homebuilders could potentially learn lessons from it. The community’s emphasis on third spaces – places that bridge work, home and school – where residents can connect and feel a sense of belonging, could apply just as well to many single-family neighborhoods.
Navigating a challenging capital environment
Central Florida, like many other high-growth Sun Belt markets, experienced a post-COVID multifamily building boom. A surge in new construction following the pandemic led to a coinciding surge in new deliveries.
In 2021 and 2022, developers delivered about 8,500 to 8,800 new multifamily units in the Orlando MSA, according to data from Cushman & Wakefield. In 2023 and 2024, the number of deliveries rose to about 12,500 and 13,000, while 2025 saw about 11,000 new units completed.
Like many other Sun Belt markets, this surge in completions oversupplied the market and pressured rents to soften. As a result, financing new multifamily projects in Central Florida became quite challenging by 2024, the reason the first multifamily community at Wyld Oaks was delayed by nearly two years.
According to Beninati, the biggest challenge in the multifamily financing environment in the Orlando market over the past couple of years hasn’t been securing construction loans so much as finding equity investors to fund projects. Investors have grown more discriminating, directing available capital toward established developers with strong track records and projects in desirable locations.
In Wyld Oaks’ case, the developer’s reputation and the project’s location and desirable master plan helped it secure an equity partner, despite the challenging environment.
However, Beninati believes local financing conditions may be starting to improve. A slowdown in new multifamily development over the past couple of years means that the market has become more balanced, and rent power has begun to stabilize. That dynamic could help other multifamily projects become more financially viable.
For Beninati, breaking ground on the community’s first phase was a major milestone, especially after a delay of nearly two years. But it is only a small piece of a much larger vision, and bringing the full community to life will take years, with market conditions shifting along the way. Weathering those changes, Beninati said, comes down to one thing.
“I think it’s just patience. This is a business where you need to be incredibly, incredibly patient,” he said. “It doesn’t just happen overnight. That’s the nature of the real estate business.”
