The Milk District

[spenser1058]

Oh, and a bit of joy for our Bernie Bros and other granola crunchers (that would include me - Birkenstocks and Mayor Pete? Hmmmm - no Birkenstocks at Brooks Brothers).

Anyway, the TG Lee dairy which gave the name to the Milk District has passed from the corporate ownership of Dean Foods  to the American Dairy Farmers co-op.

Let socialism reign along Bumby! (Don’t worry too much - the farmers who own the co-op are probably the most Republican group of socialists you’ve ever seen other than those siting in the airport hangar next to their jets waiting for their minions to download their corporate welfare checks...)

 

 

Edited May 14, 2020 by spenser1058

[spenser1058]

Townhomes to be built on the site of the former Methodist church on South St.?

https://bungalower.com/2020/05/13/watch-a-film-about-urban-spaces-with-urbanist-nerds-online/

From Bungalower 

[HankStrong]

MX Tacos was tough to eat at.  Their menu was obnoxious because it was actually 3 menus.  One on the board.  One on one sheet of paper and one on another sheet of paper.  Do you want specials?  Do you want authentic?  Do you want normal?  

 

The quality was good, though.

[spenser1058]

2 minutes ago, HankStrong said:

MX Tacos was tough to eat at.  Their menu was obnoxious because it was actually 3 menus.  One on the board.  One on one sheet of paper and one on another sheet of paper.  Do you want specials?  Do you want authentic?  Do you want normal?  

 

The quality was good, though.

They’re just keeping you on you toes, @HankStrong. It’s a community service to ward off Alzheimer’s!

[Jolly Roger's Crackers]

Anybody have an update on Colonial Lanes Bowling? Went by there the other day and peeked in the windows. Looks like it is frozen in time. 16 lanes (I think) and the rest of the place look like they are stuck in a Mesozoic ember. Man...I miss that joint. Cheers.

Edited June 1, 2020 by Jolly Roger's Crackers

[spenser1058]

6 hours ago, Jolly Roger's Crackers said:

Anybody have an update on Colonial Lanes Bowling? Went by there the other day and peeked in the windows. Looks like it is frozen in time. 16 lanes (I think) and the rest of the place look like they are stuck in a Mesozoic ember. Man...I miss that joint. Cheers.

We know they were reducing the number of lanes and supposedly reopening but not a lot more. Hopefully someone has heard more.

[Jolly Roger's Crackers]

14 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

We know they were reducing the number of lanes and supposedly reopening but not a lot more. Hopefully someone has heard more.

Yeah...they basically chopped off a large chunk of the building including half the lanes....but it has been patched up (on the "severed" side) and looks pretty much the same in the interior. Peeking in the window it looks like time is just standing still.  Every time I pass by there and see that "self storage"  tarp draped over the bowling sign I mutter a few choice expletives.  Cheers.

[spenser1058]

19 minutes ago, Jolly Roger's Crackers said:

Yeah...they basically chopped off a large chunk of the building including half the lanes....but it has been patched up (on the "severed" side) and looks pretty much the same in the interior. Peeking in the window it looks like time is just standing still.  Every time I pass by there and see that "self storage"  tarp draped over the bowling sign I mutter a few choice expletives.  Cheers.

They may have just played it this way to keep the neighborhood from having a fit at losing a beloved icon for.... a generic storage facility.

Watch for them to let it sit there for a couple of years and then claim it’s too far gone to save. It’s called “demolition by neglect” and in these parts it was pioneered by Jaymont and with Buddy as a willing co-conspirator. Here’s hoping I’m wrong!

Edited June 1, 2020 by spenser1058

[codypet]

Didn't NRE just buy the bowling alley?

Vaguely recall not being too impressed because they have been sitting on the SE corner of Bumby and Curry Ford for about two years now.

[smileguy]

2 hours ago, codypet said:

Didn't NRE just buy the bowling alley?

Vaguely recall not being too impressed because they have been sitting on the SE corner of Bumby and Curry Ford for about two years now.

They were under contract to close in March. Not sure if anything has developed since this article. 
https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2020/01/08/resetting-the-pinsheres-when-construction-may.html 

[jack]

It appears they have not closed. 

[spenser1058]

Update on plans to build townhomes on site of former Trinity UMC on South St.:

https://www.thedailycity.com/news

From The Daily City 

The sanctuary and fellowship hall (dating back to the ‘50’s) will be saved for use by H2O Church. Other structures on the property will be removed.

[JFW657]

3 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

Update on plans to build townhomes on site of former Trinity UMC on South St.:

https://www.thedailycity.com/news

From The Daily City 

The sanctuary and fellowship hall (dating back to the ‘50’s) will be saved for use by H2O Church. Other structures on the property will be removed.

From the article....

Quote

Internal roads will be built on the property and some of the mature trees will be saved.

Looks like someone still reads this forum.....  

[spenser1058]

SAVE THE TREE!

Oops - @HankStrong, I bet Reality doesn’t think trees are urban.

Edited June 15, 2020 by spenser1058

[HankStrong]

1 hour ago, JFW657 said:

From the article....

Looks like someone still reads this forum.....  

Nice work 

[smileguy]

It's good to see local independent retail excelling.

https://www.mainstreet.org/blogs/national-main-street-center/2020/06/12/announcing-the-winners-of-the-future-of-shopping-s

Vintage clothing shop Etoile Boutique in the Milk District has just been selected as one of ten nationwide recipients of the American Express Future of Shopping Small Grant Program.

The program was designed to support small business retail stores that work with new approaches to traditional business strategies and those that are looking to try new techniques. Etoile’s owner, Falon Quilen, will be using the $10,000 grant to invest in new technology and revamping her stockroom with a new shipping station and other improvements to accommodate in and out-of-state customers with a new personal shopping program.

Edited June 15, 2020 by smileguy

[spenser1058]

It’s interesting that the Main St districts are becoming what we once had in the early days of the Orange Ave Streetscape but then faded out as Jaymont started making it clear they were unwanted on that block. Not what I imagined but great news nevertheless- change is good!

[spenser1058]

As promised, a nod to two interesting 1950’s structures you probably don’t give much thought to. We lost one but the second soldiers on mostly intact.

In the Milk District? Really? Yeppers, and one was designed by a starchitect. 

So what are we talking about? One, the Coytown Shopping Center, lives on, not unlike in the ‘50’s. The only major difference is the original Winn-Dixie was replaced by the Carter-era store that remains (as an Asian supermarket). They simply leveled the original store when the replacement was done and put more parking in front.

Coytown was first in 1954; Colonial Plaza arrived in 1956.

The other, Colonial Plaza, was mostly leveled in 1995. Sadly, the city paid Cousins Properties about $1 million to tear down Orlando’s first regional shopping center. We’ll talk about why that matters in a moment.

One of the interesting facts about both Coytown and CP was that, from the beginning, they were mixed-use. In an era of separating land uses and requiring a car to move between them, that was unusual.

There wasn’t any residential but, in addition to the two retail strips, each had offices for rent on a second floor.

Coytown’s were in the middle of the center; CP’s were atop the original Walgreens, now Petco.

More to come (scroll down to the continuation).

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2003-01-09-0301080434-story.html

From the Sentinel 

Edited August 16, 2020 by spenser1058

[codypet]

How long did True Value last?  ACE I know showed up in the mid 2010's.  I remember getting a grand opening flyer for ACE when I lived in Colonialtown North in 2013.

[spenser1058]

10 hours ago, codypet said:

How long did True Value last?  ACE I know showed up in the mid 2010's.  I remember getting a grand opening flyer for ACE when I lived in Colonialtown North in 2013.

I’m not sure exactly (we used Landis Stone Hardware at Western Way) but, based on the sign, Coytown was a True Value franchise for most of my life. Switching to Ace has been somewhat recent (maybe within the last ten years?)

 

[smileguy]

20 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

As promised, a nod to two interesting 1950’s structures you probably don’t give much thought to. We lost one but the second soldiers on mostly intact.

In the Milk District? Really? Yeppers, and one was designed by a starchitect. 

So what are we talking about? One, the Coytown Shopping Center, lives on, not unlike in the ‘50’s. The only major difference is the original Winn-Dixie was replaced by the Carter-era store that remains (as an Asian supermarket). They simply leveled the original store when the replacement was done and put more parking in front.

The building is still standing, but sadly stripped of any architectural charm. 

[spenser1058]

20 minutes ago, smileguy said:

The building is still standing, but sadly stripped of any architectural charm. 

You’re right, of course. I like to think, as in the case of St. James’ and the metal Eisenhowering once done to the old Ivey’s and Dickson & Ives downtown, so long as the backhoe doesn’t run, things can be restored.

Sadly, that’s not the case for Coytown’s next-door neighbor, the very funky Modernage Furniture, which was replaced by a generic TDBank and Panda Express.

https://images.app.goo.gl/r3PMARuk5Hg9Sfeo9

Edited August 16, 2020 by spenser1058

[JFW657]

That furniture store is one of my oldest memories of driving through Orlando with my family to get to the turnpike when I was a kid in the late 60's.

It always caught my eye.

[spenser1058]

So, let’s head across the street to Colonial Plaza. We’ll be talking today about the original 1956 strip (the North Mall was added in 1962, the South Mall in ‘73 and the Ivey’s addition which took in about 1/3 of the original strip into the mall in 1983 - there were “modernizations” of the strip in ‘73 and ‘83 which were very beige, but later on that).

First, to give you an idea of just how clueless our leaders sometimes are when it comes to preserving things, the 1956 strip was designed by one of Florida’s most famous architects, Morris Lapidus. He gave us Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau and Eden Roc hotels.

More on the way...

 

Edited August 16, 2020 by spenser1058

[JFW657]

From Historic Florida.

Hard to fault people for decisions made decades ago before historic/architectural preservation was even a thing.