A few months ago, Kissimmee’s Magic Village by Pininfarina, the third and largest vacation home resort by Magic Companies Group, bore the familiar signs of a Florida real estate flop. The site wasn’t secure, the few dozen completed units were eerily vacant, and the rest of the site was covered with weeds and discarded building materials.
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Now, against the odds, owner José Augusto Schincariol has turned the desolate site into a buzz of activity.
With Sagewood Corporation on board as the new general contractor, Magic Village 3 is moving full speed ahead on the next phase of the 468-unit vacation home resort, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.
Now Schincariol’s biggest challenge is convincing the hundreds of investors who bought vacation homes to give him another two years to deliver on the promise.
“There’s no better way for me to convince you that things are happening than to show you that things are happening,” he said. “So, if you come here, you can see construction, you can see people working, you can see things moving on.”
Schincariol, who had invested $40 million to acquire Magic Companies and its assets, told GrowthSpotter that finding the right construction partner was a critical step to bringing the project back to life. Sagewood had a 25-year history of delivering luxury homes and hotels in New York and Miami. CEO Douglas A. Ferrarini Strabelli, a Brazilian native, said the company opened an Orlando office after taking over the Magic Village build.
Strabelli brought experience and organization to the project, and he bought into Schincariol’s vision for the resort. “We believe it’s a great project to be involved with,” he said.
Sagewood has 87 units in active construction and building permits pending for another 72 units. Strabelli said he has crews finishing the interior build-out of the final 36 units in Phase 1 that were left partially completed after Schincariol gained full ownership of the company. The company has now closed sales on 28 units in Phase 1 for a total of $16.6 million.
Dozens of Magic Village 3 townhomes have walls up and are ready for framing, then roofing. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
Sagewood Corporation took over as general contractor at Magic Village 3 and began work in May on the townhomes that already had approved building permits. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
A mason from Sagewood Corp. builds the exterior walls of a vacation home in Phase 3 of Magic Village 3. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
Phase 3 of Magic Village is now slated for completion in late 2026. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
This photo of Phase 3 was taken on Oct. 15, 2025. At the time, progress on Magic Village 3 had been stalled for two years. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
During its heyday from 2018 to 2020, Magic Development was busy building the Magic Village 2 resort while the sales team pre-sold hundreds of the luxury townhomes in Magic Village 3, primarily to buyers from South America, Mexico and China. The developer broke ground on Magic Village 3 in 2020, but the project stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic. Vertical construction started on Phase 1 in 2022, but the first units weren’t completed until last year.
During that time, Schicariol and his former partners fought over the direction of the company, eventually agreeing to dissolve the partnership. They ended up in court last summer when Schincariol refused to pay the exit package to one of the company founders, who was accused of diverting nearly half of the $87 million deposited for Magic Village 3 to cover overages at their earlier projects and their own lavish lifestyles. Magic Companies lost the case and was ordered to pay nearly $5 million to the former partner.
Schincariol doesn’t discuss the past, saying he has closed the book and wants to focus on keeping the company afloat and the construction crews working. Failing would bring dishonor to his family — one of the wealthiest in Brazil. Schincariol and his siblings inherited half of the family’s beer company and sold it for $1.2 billion to Japanese beverage titan Kirin.
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“We have six phases. Magic Village sold four phases. We are talking about 328 houses,” Schincariol said. “The ones that are already sold will be delivered.”
Strabelli said the final units in Phase 1 would be delivered within 30 days. The Phase 3 units under construction now will be delivered starting in December, with the entire section scheduled for completion by May of 2027. Then the crews will cycle through to the next section, with all four phases delivered in the next two years.
Phase one of Magic Village by Pininfarina will be completed by the end of July. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
The kitchens at Magic Village by Pininfarina include top of the line appliances and sleek, Eurpean-style cabinets. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
All of the vacation homes in Magic Village by Pininfarina feature a luxury interior package priced at $60,000 to $100,000. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
The sophisticated design package sold with each unit features natural wood finishes and upholstered leather furnishings. This is the primary bedroom. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
The spacious master suites in the townhomes at Magic Village by Pininfarina include a sitting area and desk. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
Main bathroom of one of the units of Magic Village in Kissimmee, on Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
Magic Companies avoids using themed kids’ rooms at its resorts, instead opting for the same industrial chic finishes. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
“We are planning to start Phase 2 and the clubhouse in January or February next year,” he said. “The estimation for finishing will be August 2027.”
Schincariol said he wouldn’t open sales for future phases until he had delivered all pre-sold units, as well as the homes Magic agreed to buy back from investors who sued to recover their deposits. The company still faces about a dozen such lawsuits from investors.
“But if we cannot convince them to stay, we have to buy the house back,” Schincariol said. “We have a few houses in inventory today that belong to Magic Village. So, before selling Phase 5 and 6, I want to sell what we have in inventory.”
Schincariol also said he’s prioritizing the townhouse construction over the development of the adjacent Magic Place property. The company owns 87 acres of commercial frontage along U.S. 192 that were previously approved for a mixed-use resort with a food hall, hotels, restaurants and retail uses. The original master plan by Pininfarina was adopted eight years ago, before the company acquired the land for Magic Village 3. Now, Schincariol says it needs to be updated to account for today’s market demands and realities.
The company also owns 24 acres just north of Magic Village that was previously under contract to Mill Creek Residential Trust, one of the nation’s largest apartment developers. Mill Creek, which had planned to build over 700 units, dropped the contract in 2024 after Osceola County hiked its mobility fees for new apartments.
“We have to finish Magic Village 3 first. I’m dedicating my time and my money to do that,” Schincariol said. “We will start developing the new master plan for the rest of the land, but this is something we’re going to do in parallel.”
He’s not entertaining offers to sell the land. He said the location, just 5 miles from the Disney parks, makes it a good long-term investment, and he plans to keep it in the family. “I have two daughters, and this is something for them for their future. This is a priority for me. At the same time, it is also a challenge because we have a lot of things to fix.”
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