The founders of Magic Improvement promised to carry excessive design, attractive structure and a world-famous luxurious model to Kissimmee’s W192 hall. However ultimately, it was a magic present, based mostly on phantasm and sleight of hand.
That is the story of builders who collected $87 million in deposits from a whole bunch of buyers, however six years later have closed on simply 18 models.
Driving a wave of success from the sell-outs of their first two Magic Village trip house resorts, founders Rodrigo Cunha and Luis Sinelli unveiled their newest enterprise at a splashy poolside cocktail occasion in 2016 to introduce their structure crew from Pininfarina, the famend Italian design agency behind luxurious sports activities automobiles like Ferrari and Maserati. Cunha, the smooth-talking CEO from Brazil, had spent six months courting Paulo Pininfarina earlier than he agreed to lend his title and abilities to the mission, dubbed Magic Place by Pininfarina.
To name the mission bold can be an understatement. The preliminary $1.7 billion plan for Magic Place by Pininfarina envisioned 1,850 apartment resort models unfold amongst 5 residential buildings, every with a pair of hovering towers. Plans additionally included a luxurious lodge and 250,000 sq. toes of retail, eating places and places of work. Osceola County had by no means seen something like this earlier than.
It nonetheless hasn’t. GrowthSpotter examined a whole bunch of courtroom paperwork from dozens of lawsuits involving the corporate, reviewed monetary information and interviewed former workers and brokers to clarify how a mission that appeared destined for achievement went off the rails.
Whereas the founders dropped grandiose bulletins, portraying themselves because the epitome of success, the corporate was drowning in debt, dealing with liens from dozens of building firms and subcontractors, information present. Cunha and Sinelli, who took a much less seen function than his gregarious accomplice, had siphoned off tens of millions of {dollars} from lenders and buyers who had made deposits for the holiday houses in Magic Village 1 to subsidize their very own extravagant way of life, in response to a lawsuit filed by the present proprietor of the corporate. Between them, the 2 had created dozens of restricted legal responsibility firms, together with LS Toys LLC and RGC Toys LLC, and receipts confirmed they transferred funds from Magic Improvement to purchase two planes, a yacht, jet skis, and even a non-public island within the Bahamas — all claimed as enterprise bills.
The identical lawsuit alleged that Magic Improvement used deposits escrowed for his or her Magic Village 2 resort to repay money owed incurred in the course of the building of Magic Village 1. However, in 2017, its founders doubled down on the Magic Place idea, spending one other $20 million to purchase 364 acres instantly south of the unique Magic Place tract. There, they promised to construct a 3rd Magic Village resort neighborhood — the biggest thus far — additionally incorporating Pininfarina designs and branding.
“We wished it to be as attractive as Magic Place, so we went to the identical guys,” Cunha mentioned on the time. “Now we have a superb relationship with Paolo Pininfarina. We instructed him our imaginative and prescient, and he mentioned, ‘We’re in.’”
All the Magic Village resorts featured an industrial stylish aesthetic and luxurious inside package deal from Design 407 Idea that was particularly curated to attraction to rich South American, Mexican and Chinese language patrons. The townhomes bought for between $460,000 and $570,000, plus the required furnishings package deal that would go for one more $60,000 to $100,000.
Magic Improvement had acquired the 87-acre property for Magic Place, simply east of Celebration and Previous City, in 2014 for $8.3 million. The second acquisition gave Magic a complete of 250 buildable acres on the tourism hall, simply east of Celebration and Previous City and minutes from the Disney parks. It was an audacious transfer. Magic Improvement had outbid different builders, together with Park Sq. Houses, for the property. Cunha boldly declared that “Magic Place will turn into Magic Metropolis.”
Although Magic Village 2 was nonetheless underneath building and tight on funds, Magic Improvement started gross sales for Magic Village 3 in late 2017. “We determined to launch one other improvement as a result of we’re promoting 10 models a month,” Cunha mentioned on the time. “Our gross sales employees must have one thing to promote.”
However they actually wanted money, so the corporate introduced in a brand new accomplice, José Augusto Schincariol, whose $30 million funding purchased him a 40% share of the newly fashioned “Magic Corporations Group LLC,” a dad or mum firm that might handle the present property and develop the Magic Place and Magic Village 3 initiatives. Schincariol and his two siblings had inherited half of Brazil’s largest beer firm from their father and bought it for $1.2 billion to Japanese beverage titan Kirin.
Pininfarina additionally designed the Magic Village 3 townhomes. The mission is authorized for over 450 townhomes, however solely 76 have been constructed. (Courtesy of Magic Improvement)
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Pininfarina additionally designed the Magic Village 3 townhomes. The mission is authorized for over 450 townhomes, however solely 76 have been constructed. (Courtesy of Magic Improvement)
Magic Village 3 was authorized for 458 townhomes and a clubhouse with 25,000 sq. toes of flex assembly area, together with a full-service restaurant, health heart, and resort facilities. Throughout that point, Schincariol had paid every of the companions an extra $5 million to achieve majority management of Magic Corporations Group, in response to monetary paperwork submitted in courtroom.
However progress on Magic Place quickly stalled, amid indications the companions had an unrealistic expectation of what sort of retail and lodging the Kissimmee market may help. They have been competing with one other huge resort mission simply down the street at Margaritaville, however Magic Improvement wished its mission to be all the pieces the competitors wasn’t. If Margaritaville was flip-flops, Magic Place can be Ferragamos.
“It was a really, very bold proposal, as a result of they have been speaking about all these huge towers on 192,” mentioned DT Minich, president and CEO of Expertise Kissimmee. However he famous: “The opposite initiatives they’ve carried out which might be open and operational are very profitable, particularly with the Brazilian market.”
SRS Actual Property’s Jason Kaiser, who was employed early on to signal luxurious retailers to Magic Place, instructed GrowthSpotter these manufacturers have been reluctant to find on W192, a hall related to low cost motels and cheesy present retailers. “They got here to me they usually had a imaginative and prescient plan, they usually threw Tiffany’s on the market,” Kaiser mentioned. “I mentioned Millenia’s acquired Tiffany’s. I don’t see Tiffany’s coming down right here — Kissimmee’s a distinct market. The type of offers I used to be bringing them have been Texas Roadhouse and Outback — actual center America — they usually weren’t desirous about that.”
John Crossman, proprietor of CrossMarc Providers, was the second retail dealer to work on Magic Place and had the identical drawback. “I couldn’t carry them what they wished,” he mentioned. “Retail follows. It’s necessary to grasp what’s within the present market.”
So Cunha determined to create his personal retail anchor. In 2018, he introduced plans for a 32,000-square-foot meals corridor referred to as Gourmand Market at Magic Place. With 4 full-service eating places, 18 stalls, and seating for 400, it will have been the biggest meals corridor within the Orlando market. Magic Corporations Group would transfer its company places of work from downtown Orlando to the second flooring of the Gourmand Market. He despatched the design crew to Portugal for inspiration and instructed his employees to start out recruiting distributors.
Crossman suggested towards the technique. “Meals halls don’t have a superb report of being worthwhile, they usually’re fairly dangerous,” he mentioned.
After greater than a yr of labor and planning, the crew filed a web site improvement plan with the county for the meals corridor. The allow was within the overview course of when the COVID pandemic hit. Three months into the shutdown, Cunha pulled the plug on the mission and, apparently, on the Magic Place imaginative and prescient.
“We saved ready for them,” Minich recalled. “They cleared all the bottom and all the pieces over there on 192, and we simply saved ready and ready. We heard numerous renditions of what was taking place and what was going to occur. And it simply saved dragging out and dragging on, with no motion.”
Later that yr, the corporate scrapped the Pininfarina tower idea and filed a brand new idea plan that might have subdivided the location into a number of parcels to accommodate almost a dozen eating places, three accommodations, a movie show, and 42,000 sq. toes of retail. The plan from Daly Design Group carved out 22 acres between the retail and Magic Village 3 for an condo advanced.
However behind the scenes, the companions disagreed on how one can proceed, courtroom information present. Cunha wished to promote the corporate’s actual property property, together with parts of Magic Place, and use the capital to develop Magic Village 3, however Schincariol and Sinelli refused.
In October of that yr, Cunha sued for judicial dissolution of the corporate, explaining the impasse in his grievance. He formally resigned in January 2021 after negotiating a settlement that might pay him an exit package deal of $13.55 million, comprising an preliminary money cost of $4 million, adopted by two annual funds of $2 million, and the proceeds from the sale of 9 trip houses in Magic Village 2.
When the subsequent installments have been due in January 2022 and 2023, Schincariol refused to pay. He accused Cunha and Sinelli of utilizing his funding to fulfill the money owed for Magic Village 2 and claimed to have just lately found monetary mismanagement in the course of the building of Magic Village 1.
Cunha sued once more, and Schincariol countersued each Cunha and Sinelli, spelling out in courtroom paperwork the extent of the alleged fraud. He mentioned the pair lied in regards to the firm’s monetary standing and money circulate to get him to comply with pay every of the companions a $100,000 month-to-month disbursement, along with their salaries. By this time, Sinelli had additionally resigned from the corporate, accepting a $1 million exit package deal and leaving Schincariol as the only real proprietor.
Schincariol employed distinguished economist Dr. Henry Fishkind to look at the corporate’s books and testify as an knowledgeable witness. Fishkind mentioned that between 2018 and 2022, Magic Corporations had collected over $87 million in deposits for trip houses in Magic Village 3, however that greater than half of the escrowed funds seemed to be “wrongly diverted from MV3.”
“There’s a discrepancy on the steadiness sheets for the businesses for building spending, in comparison with the precise building draw requests,” Fishkind wrote in his report. “The books present $37.6 million of building put in in comparison with the development attracts of $13.3 million. The discrepancy is $23.4 million.”
Cunha didn’t deny the previous mismanagement however argued in courtroom filings that the alleged fraud was “barred by the statute of limitations.” Nor did he deny the $100,000 month-to-month disbursements, which have been documented within the minutes of the corporate’s quarterly board conferences. As an alternative, when the matter went to trial final November, Cunha offered proof, together with emails and signed paperwork, exhibiting Schincariol was conscious of the corporate’s funds and had licensed the distributions.
Schincariol’s personal testimony was catastrophic for the corporate. On the stand, he claimed that he wasn’t legally entitled to view the corporate’s monetary information as a result of he wasn’t a U.S. citizen, however when pressed, he couldn’t cite any U.S. legislation that might bar him from inspecting the books.
After a weeklong trial, the jury took simply an hour and a half to achieve a verdict in favor of Cunha. Magic Corporations Group and Sinelli have been ordered to pay him almost $5 million.
Schincariol didn’t reply to interview requests.
Cunha moved to Portugal shortly after the cash modified fingers, and Sinelli moved again to Brazil.
Across the identical time, one other deal fell aside that would have offered a money infusion to the corporate. Mill Creek Residential Belief, the nation’s third-largest condo developer, had been underneath contract for the Magic Place multifamily web site since 2023 and was effectively into allowing and design. Modera Magic Place was proposed to have as much as 728 multifamily models in two phases, however Mill Creek dropped out of the mission within the fall of 2024, after Osceola County hiked its mobility charges, which might have added tens of millions to the price of the mission.
At the moment, Magic Place is nothing greater than an entrance street and two vacant business tons. Many of the acreage is untouched, and the corporate has no lively permits for the mission.
Fiber optic conduit lays throughout Torino Street at Monza Courtroom within the Magic Village improvement in Kissimmee, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. Magic Corporations have collected greater than $87 million in deposits for trip townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, however six years later, it has solely completed 76 models. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
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Fiber optic conduit lays throughout Torino Street at Monza Courtroom within the Magic Village improvement in Kissimmee, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. Magic Corporations have collected greater than $87 million in deposits for trip townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, however six years later, it has solely completed 76 models. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Magic Corporations has accomplished 76 townhomes in Magic Village 3, nevertheless it has solely closed gross sales on 18 models resulting from an absence of capital. Osceola County issued constructing permits in July for 35 extra models, however there isn’t a building exercise on the web site. There is no such thing as a allow for the clubhouse. No less than a dozen buyers have efficiently sued the corporate to get better $3.5 million in misplaced deposits, and eight patrons nonetheless have instances towards the developer in search of a mixed $3.6 million.
Schincariol secured a $30 million building mortgage from Brazilian asset supervisor REAG for Magic Village 3 in June, simply months earlier than Brazilian authorities raided REAG’s places of work as a part of the biggest legal fraud investigation within the nation’s historical past. CEO Hector Lizasuain, who had been with Magic Corporations Group for a decade, resigned in June.
The corporate can be being sued by one in every of its personal homeowners’ associations for claims of shoddy building and failing to keep up the Magic Village 1 property. That case is scheduled for trial in July 2026.
Have a tip about Central Florida improvement? Contact me at lkinsler@GrowthSpotter.com or (407) 420-6261. Comply with GrowthSpotter on Fb and LinkedIn.
