Article Courtesy of The Orlando Sentinel

By Jack Snyder

Published March 10, 2007

Condominium owners in the Metropolitan at Lake Eola, a downtown Orlando complex that was converted from an aging hotel, are complaining that they bought into a property rife with problems.

A lawsuit filed in state Circuit Court by the Metropolitan at Lake Eola Condominium Association seeks to have the condos' developer repair everything from the roof to the heating-and-cooling systems.

The suit claims that an inspection of the property at 151 E. Washington St. by an outside company has concluded it would cost between $1.4 million and $3.3 million to correct the deficiencies.

"We also feel strongly that the developer did not sufficiently fund the reserve accounts as required by law" to fix such problems, the association's lawyer, W. Todd Demetriades, wrote in an e-mail when asked to elaborate on the suit.

David Eichenblatt, the Atlanta developer who converted the former Sheraton hotel, said he hired "one of the best inspection companies in the state" to evaluate the property. That company, GLE Inc. of Tampa, as well as the architect and engineer who inspected the property are also listed as defendants in the condo association's lawsuit.

GLE's inspection rated the property, originally built in 1963, as in good-to-excellent condition, Eichenblatt said.

Eichenblatt sold some of the converted units for less than $100,000 and contends the average price for the 128 units was about $170,000.

But as many as 50 percent of the owners who bought from Eichenblatt later resold their properties to others for big profits during the height of the home-buying frenzy, the developer contends. Those higher prices paid by the resale owners may have led them to think their properties were comparable to the new condo-tower units rising all around the Metropolitan in downtown Orlando, Eichenblatt argues.

The former hotel property suffered hurricane damage during its 2004 conversion, which delayed completion. Eichenblatt said he honored his original price commitments "even though it cost me a lot of money."

A quick check of real estate listings on the Internet last week found one Realtor advertising condos at the Metropolitan for prices ranging from $189,500 to $550,000. A separate Realtor listing for a two-bedroom, two-bath unit was seeking $284,900.