If you think about downtown Tavares, the courthouse, Wooten Park, restaurants, and sea planes come to mind. But a developer hopes to break ground by late summer for an apartment complex diagonally across from City Hall.

“We’re excited about it,” Jeffrey Cagan of Cagan Management Group says.

So are city officials, who bought the property from the county a decade ago for economic development. It was once the site of a bank and later used by the clerk of court.

“It was my first project,” says Bob Tweety, economic director for the city. One of the council members told him it would keep him busy for a while. “I laughed and said I would knock it out quickly.”

Things happen, however, and sometimes things take time. “The market was soft after Covid in 2020,” he says. “We put it out for proposals in 2022.”

About four or five companies expressed an interest, with Cagan closing on the deal in December.

Plans call for a three-story, 58-unit complex with 12,000 square feet of commercial space, including a coffee shop on the first floor. The complex will be called Heritage Square.

Cagan is no stranger to Lake County, with apartments in Mount Dora, Clermont, and Atwater Apartments behind Florida Hospital Waterman.

The company’s website boasts a real estate portfolio of more than $2 billion, with hubs in the Midwest, Florida and Louisiana.

Apartments seem to be sprouting up everywhere in Lake County. “Way too many in the area of U.S. Highway 17-92 and U.S. 27,” Cagan concedes. He was quick to stake a claim in exploding south Lake with Cagan Crossing.

He jokes that after 50 years in the business, “people think I know what I am doing.”

There is a market in Mount Dora and Tavares area for new apartments, with quality appliances, nice countertops and other attractive features. Heritage Square will not be a 55-and-older restricted apartment but a mixture of younger professionals, too. It will feature elevators as an added convenience.

Florida has defied slowdowns seen in other parts of the country, with more than 1,000 people a day moving to the Sunshine State. He predicts a tougher year in 2025, however.

Rents are stabilizing, but he is not worried. “We’re in it for the long term.”

President Trump’s tariffs and crackdown on immigrants are causing some people to hit the job-creation caution button, says Cagan, who says that is an economic, not a political observation.

He said he recently returned from Montreal with his wife after visiting her family. “Everything was fine,” he said but now they are insulted over the president’s jokes about making Canada the 51^st state.

“We need the Canadian tourists,” he says. “People need to not to take things so personally.”