After a difficult start struggling with unfulfilled potential, things are finally looking up at Baldwin Park’s Village Center with a new owner.
Fulfilling premonitions that a new owner would come out of the foreclosure lawsuit Wells Fargo Bank filed against RP Baldwin Retail LLC last year, McKinley Inc. has taken on ownership of the promising plaza. In turn, McKinley has trusted management duties to The Real Estate Consortium, based out of Winter Park.
Current tenants and business owners at Village Center hope that the new ownership will bring some much needed change to the area, which the Orlando Business Journal reported has struggled with an 18.6 percent vacancy rate. Compare this to the much lower 3.9 percent vacancy rate standard in Orlando.
The Real Estate Consortium seems well aware of this problem, however, and is already taking steps to address it. Harry Collison Jr., president of the consortium, said in an interview with the Orlando Business Journal, “We’ve had tremendous response already. We’re working with more than a dozen prospective tenants for the center.”