Throughout his more than four decades as a land broker in Central Florida, Trevor Hall has been guided by a simple, elegant criteria when forecasting where development is headed next.

“I was taught a long time ago to follow the road money,” said Hall, an executive vice president for Colliers’ office in Orlando. “That’s where the growth is going to go.”

For Hall and other real estate professionals in the market, following the road money often has meant following the assembly of metro Orlando’s 100-mile highway beltway, which finally was completed in January.
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Longtime local real estate investor Daryl Carter remembers graduating from the University of Florida in the mid-1980s and watching his classmates head to larger markets like Atlanta.

Since then, Carter has observed as the Orlando market has closed many of the business environment gaps between it and cities like Atlanta — an example of which is having its own ring road to mimic Interstate 285, known as “the Perimeter,” which circles Atlanta.

“[Central Florida’s] beltway is another big step in the evolution in Orlando being a big-time city,” said the president of Maury L. Carter & Associates.

Carter went on to say that part of that evolution stemming from the road is the way its connectivity changes the region’s development landscape, driving momentum to perimeter suburbs.