Million Dollar Investor Visas Ok'd for Florida

From the Orlando Business Journal:

Lake Buena Vista Resort Village & Spa has become Florida’s first federally-designated EB-5 Regional Center.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service designation, known as the EB-5 immigrant investor program, allows foreign buyers to eventually become permanent United States residents by investing at least $1 million in properties.

The EB-5 program, created by Congress as part of the Immigration Act of 1990, grants foreign buyers U.S. residency in exchange for investing $1 million in a project that creates at least 10 jobs.

Sam Sutton, managing member of the Lake Buena Vista Resort, currently has 500 condo-hotel units and wants to build another 1,300.

To finance that, he wants to sell 70 existing condo-hotel units and then attract more investors through the EB-5 Program to finance the construction of a new 152-unit building at the resort.

There are 21 other designated EB-5 programs nationwide.

Lake Buena Vista Resort is planned for 1,875 furnished resort condo units ranging from 1,080-2,170 square feet, along with dining, a fitness center, spa-salon and aquatic center.

bh