Interstruct's Ryan Young on fee-free work, building out Travel + Leisure's new downtown HQ
Orlando-based Interstruct Design + Build is making its mark on downtown with a mix of high-profile commercial projects and award-winning community work — including several no-fee developments that are reshaping arts and culture spaces in Parramore and the city core.
That includes the ArtCube Gallery, a 24/7 art installation which launched in 2023 and features a variety of artists near the company's HQ.
It also provided free design and construction management help for the Ford-ify the Arts Courtyard, an empty alley behind the historic Rogers Kiene Building that was converted into an outdoor event space in partnership with the Downtown Arts District. In addition, it helped provide the historic Black Bottom House of Prayer in Parramore free services to stabilize its historic building so it can move forward with a renovation.
The three projects all were finalists for the Downtown Orlando Partnership's Golden Brick Awards, with the Ford-ify the Arts Courtyard winning the public works and placemaking category for the event.
Meanwhile, the company will be the general contractor for the buildout of Travel + Leisure's headquarters space at 501 W. Church St. Travel + Leisure is moving its headquarters from 6277 Sea Harbor Drive to downtown Orlando after securing incentives from the city of Orlando. The timeshare giant will lease the building on Church Street for more than 900 employees, with plans to begin moving in at the end of this year.
It also has plans for 802 West, a 15,000-square-foot building with retail and office space at 802 W. Church St.
Here, Interstruct CEO Ryan Young spoke with Orlando Business Journal on the firm's fee-free works and updated the progress on two of its major local commercial development projects.
What has motivated the company to take on fee-free projects?
The process has evolved since we moved into our office in Parramore and have focused more of our business on building community. The move a couple of years ago, being involved with Jennifer H. Desire Foundation and getting boots on the ground more in the Parramore community has opened up an avenue for our business model to give back to the community. Those three projects were focused on that, and it happened to be timing where they aligned, and we’ve been able to do those over the past couple of years. Being able to give back where we use our licenses and business model to give back to the community has been a new avenue we have opened up to. We have great clients who allow us to pay the bills, but being able to give back is something we’ve been able to evolve and learn over the years.
What’s next for building out the Travel + Leisure space?
That job is one of the more exciting jobs we are working on from the general contracting standpoint. We were not the architect, but we were hired to build out 186,000 square feet. All of the work we are doing to the West Church corridor in thinking about what that could be over the next 10 years, this is exactly the type of move we need from the tenant perspective. We have 1,000 people who will be showing up to work in January who will need restaurants, bars, places to run errands to and creating a center of gravity along the corridor. There have been some leases in CityView like the ice cream shop, and we envision more of that happening sooner rather than later, especially with the development of Westcourt. Everything is on track with Travel + Leisure, and we are looking forward to finishing a successful project at the end of the year.
What is next for the 802 West project?
We’re in negotiations with a tenant, and once we have a tenant in place, we have financing in place which is solidified. We have a building permit we would need to pull. We just need the right creative tenant for the building, and that’s who we are talking to. We have every intention to break ground as soon as that happens. We’re ready to pull the trigger on starting; we just need to make sure in an uncertain marketplace that we have our leases lined up before we start construction.
Interstruct Design + Build
- Description: Design-build firm focused on commercial construction and real estate development
- Top executive: CEO Ryan Young
- Address: 814 W. Church St., Orlando 32805
- Other office locations: Tampa, Sarasota and Charlotte, North Carolina
- Employees: Nearly 60