Ask why a house near the old Seminole Towne Center is suddenly worth watching, and you will usually hear about the Costco. What gets left out, unless you read the actual ordinance, is the deadline attached to it. The rezoning the Sanford City Commission approved in February 2026 gives the developer three years to finish the site's infrastructure work. Miss that window and the rezoning reverts, according to Hoodline's coverage of the ordinance, which cited reporting from FOX 35 Orlando. The plan that is supposed to remake a big piece of Sanford's airport corridor does not just need capital. It needs to hit a schedule.

That three-year window is roughly the same horizon Sanford's own economic development director has attached to a much bigger claim. In October 2025, Brady Lessard told News 6 that the site's roughly $50 million valuation could climb to as much as $700 million within four years. By February 2026, in comments Hoodline reported, he was citing a $500 to $600 million range on a three to four year horizon. Whichever number holds, a city official is on record projecting a valuation swing measured in the hundreds of millions on land most of Sanford has driven past for years without a second look.

A Mall That Already Lost Most of Its Value Once

Before anyone talked about Costco, this parcel had already gone through a much harder story. In 2020, 4th Dimension Properties and an investor partner paid $52.3 million for the Seminole Towne Center site, according to ConnectCRE's reporting on the deal. By March 2025, that same 76-acre property sold to The Ardent Companies for $17.5 million. The mall portion officially closed for redevelopment that January, leaving four anchors open: Dillard's, JCPenney, Dick's Sporting Goods, and Elev8.

That collapse matters for how you should read the recovery story. This is not a steady appreciation curve. It is a site that lost roughly two-thirds of its book value in five years, followed by a bet that it can gain that back and then some, conditional on a developer hitting a permitting and construction schedule the city wrote into law.

What's Actually Being Built, and When

The February 2026 rezoning covers 48.89 acres at 200 Towne Center Circle and clears the way for a warehouse club running somewhere between 153,820 and 156,454 square feet, matching public Costco renderings, along with a fueling station, tire service, and a liquor store. City planning staff pushed back on what they called a "monolithic" design and secured commitments for added landscaping before signing off.

Separately, Ardent has said the broader plan includes a 300-unit apartment building and a hotel, with additional retail and restaurant deals Lessard described as already signed but not yet publicly named. Demolition of the former Macy's building was expected to begin sometime in 2026, with construction rolling out in phases through 2027 and beyond, per ClickOrlando's reporting.

The apartment push is not confined to the mall parcel itself. A separate developer, Kolter, has proposed 510 Live Local apartments at International Parkway and I-4, a few minutes from the Towne Center site, according to GrowthSpotter's Seminole County development coverage. Locals are watching closely. Michael and Miranda Quigley, who own Quigley Coffee Company a short drive from the mall, told Spectrum News they hope the overhaul brings people back to an area that has "only had way more residences move here" while the mall itself sat empty.

Two Corridors, Two Different Bets

The Established Side of Town Isn't Waiting on Anyone's Deadline

While the airport corridor waits on permits, Historic Downtown Sanford is already running on proven demand. It has the RiverWalk trail along Lake Monroe, a marina, and a walkable core of shops and restaurants that Sanford's own economic development office describes as one of the city's signature draws, alongside Seminole State College and the Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens.

The SunRail station sits on the west side of town off State Road 46 and offers a free trolley connection into the historic core. It posted the highest ridership of any Seminole County SunRail stop in the most recent fiscal year on record, with 62,733 riders. That is demand that already exists, independent of anything happening at the mall.

If you are comparing a Sanford waterfront listing near Lake Monroe against something closer to International Parkway, you are not comparing two versions of the same market. You are comparing an asset with an established, dated track record against one that is priced partly on a promise with a contract deadline attached.

Why Your Price Trackers Disagree Right Now

This split shows up in the numbers, and the numbers do not agree with each other. Over the three months ending in May 2026, the median Sanford sale price was $345,000, down 6.2 percent year over year, with homes taking an average of 37 days to sell. As of mid-2026, a separate typical-value estimate for Sanford put the citywide figure at $343,448, up 2.4 percent year over year. Narrow that same estimate to ZIP code 32771 and it shows a 2.8 percent decline over the past year.

Three trackers, three different directions, all describing the same city in the same few months. None of them are wrong exactly. They are measuring different things, over different windows, and blending a corridor that is absorbing new apartment supply with one that has not added meaningful inventory in years. A separate tracking firm counted 454 closed Sanford sales over a trailing six-month period as of August 2026, with a median of $370,300 and a middle 50 percent spread running from $278,000 to $485,000. That spread is the real story. Where a specific address sits inside it depends far more on which side of town it is on than on the citywide median.

What This Means If You're Looking at a Specific Sanford Address

None of this means avoid one corridor and chase the other. It means ask a different question before you write an offer. If a listing is being marketed on proximity to the future Costco or the new apartments, ask what happens to that premium if the three-year infrastructure deadline slips. If a listing sits inside the historic core near the RiverWalk or the SunRail line, the premium you are paying reflects decades of proof, not a projection made in a city commission meeting.

We track Sanford's neighborhoods block by block, including how this redevelopment is shifting demand on both sides of town, and we can walk through exactly where a specific Sanford home for sale sits relative to both stories.

A Short FAQ

Has the mall been demolished yet? Four anchor stores, Dillard's, JCPenney, Dick's Sporting Goods, and Elev8, were still open as of early 2026 reporting. Demolition of the former Macy's building was expected to begin sometime in 2026, with site work potentially starting as early as spring, and construction phased through 2027 and beyond.

What happens if Ardent misses the three-year deadline? Per the ordinance covered by Hoodline in February 2026, the rezoning reverts if the developer has not completed the required infrastructure work within that window.

Does this redevelopment affect Historic Downtown Sanford directly? Not directly. The two corridors are geographically separate, and downtown's RiverWalk, marina, and SunRail ridership reflect demand that already exists, independent of anything happening at the Towne Center site.

If you are weighing a purchase or a sale on either side of Sanford right now, the mechanics behind the headline matter more than the headline itself. The Mel Bernstein Team can walk you through what a specific address is actually betting on. Let's Connect.