Orlando Fashion Square [Renovation in Progress]

[alex]

I have to disagree with the idea that organic development is the better alternative. The only reason College Park is noteworthy today is because it was carefully platted in the 1920s, effectively making it a planned community. (That, and the more recent re-striping of Edgewater Drive.) Likewise, downtown Winter Park is a destination because it was fully planned as a resort town connected to the railroad. (Again, the City had to intervene and re-brick Park Ave after they paved it in the '70s.) I love the businesses along Corrine Drive, but its urban design is a complete mess. A re-striping of the street and better sidewalks would be a start, but I honestly think it's unfixable.  

I'm not saying we have to have one developer/manager take care of all of Fashion Square, but if it's not planned right we'll end up with even more isolated big box stores like we've seen pop up around the mall. Or worse, if it's planned wrong, we'll end up with another Waterford Lakes or Winter Park Village disaster. 

[JFW657]

I think re: College Park and Winter Park, though the street layouts and residential parts of the cities may have been pre-planned, I'm pretty sure most of the commercial buildings along Edgewater Drive and Park Avenue happened "organically", or independently of any single developer's master plan.

IOW, not like Baldwin Park, where everything was drawn up in the same set of blueprints and slapped up pretty much all at once.

I don't think the buildings that house the stores along Edgewater and Park were designed by the same architectural firm and built by the same GC all at the same time as one big project.

[alex]

I agree, that's why I'm not saying Fashion Square needs just one designer/contractor/manager. Like I said, it doesn't guarantee good design (Waterford, WP Village) or price competitiveness (BP). But we also can't expect the city to organically grow into walkable neighborhoods. Current zoning and chain store business models support strip malls and outparcels. When that's what's easiest to build, then that's what gets built. Case in point: anything along South Orange Avenue (outside SoDo itself). Developers going out of their way for "placemaking" (like the Yard at Ivanhoe or Crescent Lucerne) are few and far between, but I hope something of that caliber eventually comes to the Fashion Square area. 

Also, if we were having this discussion at a speakeasy in 1920s Orlando, we'd be complaining about "all those lookalike Sears Catalog craftsman houses taking over Thornton Park." Or if we were stationed at McCoy AFB in the 1940s, we'd consider buying "one of those new cookie-cutter houses in Coytown". Architectural pattern books and reusing blueprints have been around forever, in residential and commercial developments. And I wouldn't be surprised if most of pre-war Orlando was designed and built by the same few firms. 

[metal93]

I think it's best to plat an easily navigable street network and let it grow incrementally/organically over time, as opposed to the new-urbanist master planning that is Baldwin Park. It'll take significantly longer to develop but the end result is generally better and less monotonous/boring.

Though there has to be some set of standards implemented to make a successful place: buildings should be up to sidewalk with entrances facing the street, only allowing institutional buildings like government buildings and churches to have setbacks, with exceptions for restaurants if they want to have outdoor seating. Limit the first floor to retail and don't allow parking lots/garages to dominate all or a large chunk of a block unless they're behind a liner building, stuff like that.

[John Hargrove]

Corrine is the worst. Amazing how well the community seems to do in spite of having basically no walkability, no shade, cars parked where sidewalks should be, etc. etc. It needs a major refresh. Even just literally 3 blocks of sidewalks and landscaping would transform it. The businesses would probably lose parking, though. Not sure how to solve that. Build a small 100 car parking structure with first floor retail or something.

 

[alex]

16 hours ago, metal93 said:

I think it's best to plat an easily navigable street network and let it grow incrementally/organically over time, as opposed to the new-urbanist master planning that is Baldwin Park. It'll take significantly longer to develop but the end result is generally better and less monotonous/boring.

Though there has to be some set of standards implemented to make a successful place: buildings should be up to sidewalk with entrances facing the street, only allowing institutional buildings like government buildings and churches to have setbacks, with exceptions for restaurants if they want to have outdoor seating. Limit the first floor to retail and don't allow parking lots/garages to dominate all or a large chunk of a block unless they're behind a liner building, stuff like that.

I guess that's the strategy Creative Village and Medical City are taking, so we'll see how those areas turn out. Definitely a slower process--and I worry that if it gets too slow they'll be tempted to accept drive-through/strip mall/big box developers. 

For better or for worse, Fashion Square is mostly one owner. The likelihood of it being razed, replatted, and sold off in individual lots is extremely low. The sheer size of the lot (bigger than North Quarter or Creative Village) means that what happens there could affect the city in a big way. 

6 hours ago, castorvx said:

Build a small 100 car parking structure with first floor retail or something.

I was hoping this would be the garage planned for the new Audubon K-8, but it's already been replaced by surface parking in the latest plans. The lack of vision in this city is sometimes unbearable. 

[smileguy]

10 hours ago, castorvx said:

Corrine is the worst. Amazing how well the community seems to do in spite of having basically no walkability, no shade, cars parked where sidewalks should be, etc. etc. It needs a major refresh. Even just literally 3 blocks of sidewalks and landscaping would transform it. The businesses would probably lose parking, though. Not sure how to solve that. Build a small 100 car parking structure with first floor retail or something.

 

According to a 12/2015 MPB report, there is a garage planned for the new Audubon K-8. Including on-site street parking, there are 263 spaces as part of the school. Hopefully some/all of that would be open for public use outside of school hours and public space currently used for parking can be reclaimed. 

 http://www.cityoforlando.net/city-planning/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2015/12/MPBStaffReport2015-12_CUP2015-00017.pdf

EDIT:
Oops - didn't see @alex's update to the plan. That's disappointing.

Edited January 18, 2017 by smileguy

[metal93]

11 hours ago, castorvx said:

Corrine is the worst. Amazing how well the community seems to do in spite of having basically no walkability, no shade, cars parked where sidewalks should be, etc. etc. It needs a major refresh. Even just literally 3 blocks of sidewalks and landscaping would transform it. The businesses would probably lose parking, though. Not sure how to solve that. Build a small 100 car parking structure with first floor retail or something.

I'd say complete the sidewalks on both sides for the entire street and replace the street parking with bike lanes and between the bike lanes and car lanes, put in buffers wide enough to put in small trees. Also they could get rid of the majority of the center turn lane and replace it with a more continuous tree-lined median with breaks only where side streets intersect.

Corrine Drive is mostly residential, so getting rid of the surface parking shouldn't affect business too much. Where the strip malls are, they can always get rid of the multiple driveways and reconfigure the parking lots to be one-way angled parking with a single entrance and exit for each strip. That should more than make up for the parking spaces lost on the street.

[JFW657]

Possible positive development on the Fashion Square front.

Reported on channel 9 news this evening...

Settlement may be quick fix to Fashion Square Mall's financial trouble

 

Orlando's Fashion Square Mall could soon be in new hands.

Recent court filings show the mall owner may be giving up the property, a month after filing for foreclosure.

A settlement could mean a quick fix to the mall's financial troubles.

Detailing an end to the 2013 business agreement with Bankcorp for a sum of $3 million, plus at least one other property in which Bankcorp has no lien, owners agreed to hand the mall back to the bank.

“So the owners and the guarantors get to walk away, and then the lender gets to take over the mall and operate it,” bankruptcy attorney Josh Tejes said.

What isn't clear in the 60-page settlement is the future of the complex, which has been slowly losing retailers.

The settlement allows the mall to continue to operate and complete previously planned upgrades, under its new owner, the lender.

An emergency hearing to approve the settlement will be held Tuesday in federal court at 2 p.m.

[popsiclebrandon]

So Unicorp gets 3 mill plus a property somewhere? 

A little surprised the bank plans to keep spending money on the property before selling.

[jack]

UP Development is the owner, not Unicorp. 

[JFW657]

Orlando Business Journal

Orlando Fashion Square mall will be handed over to a new owner this Thursday.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Cynthia Jackson in the Middle District of Florida on Feb. 21 approved a settlement agreement between mall owner UP Fieldgate US Investments-Fashion Square LLC and its Philadelphia-based lender, The Bancorp Inc. (Nasdaq: TBBK), following a nearly two-year-long battle.

UP Fieldgate, an entity related to Franklin, Tenn.-based UP Development, now plans to give the remaining 70 years of its 90-year ground lease on the mall to Bancorp. Bancorp plans to have the mall continue to operate, but it's unknown what will happen with ongoing redevelopment.

As part of the agreement, UP Development gives up any future involvement in the mall's redevelopment, as previously reported by Orlando Business Journal.

Bancorp likely will hire a management company to oversee the mall, said Orlando bankruptcy attorney Scott Shuker, UP Fieldgate's representative in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.

Jackson is expected to sign the papers finalizing the agreement by the morning of Feb. 22.

 

[neoanderz]

Now the Alexan at Audabon project can proceed which im happy about.  It will bring some more residential density to the area and hopefully provide more continuity between Baldwin Park and Fashion Square.

The big question now is what exactly will happen to Fashion Square.  Will the bank continue the plan to develop a hotel on site or will they do something more drastic in terms of redevelopment?  This could be a very good thing that the bank now owns it.  Maybe we will get some big changes.

[orlandoguy]

A later article from OBJ puts a timeline to the Alexan project:

Q2 2017: Groundbreaking
Q3 2017: Project goes vertical
Q1 or Q2 2019: Completion

http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2017/02/24/worth-the-wait-apartment-complex-to-break-ground.html

[orlandoguy]

Also, if you need an additional Darden option within a one block radius of OFS, Longhorn Steakhouse has been named as a tenant at the redevelopment of the Sears & Sears Auto site. Are they taking aim at Linda's La Cantina?

http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2017/02/24/worth-the-wait-apartment-complex-to-break-ground.html

[JFW657]

1 hour ago, orlandoguy said:

Also, if you need an additional Darden option within a one block radius of OFS, Longhorn Steakhouse has been named as a tenant at the redevelopment of the Sears & Sears Auto site. Are they taking aim at Linda's La Cantina?

 

If memory serves me correctly, there used to be a Longhorn Steakhouse on the other side of Colonial just east of Burger King right around where a Wawa sits now.

Don't think they hurt La Cantina's business too much then, so maybe there's room for two steakhouses around there.

[spenser1058]

On 2/25/2017 at 8:58 AM, JFW657 said:

If memory serves me correctly, there used to be a Longhorn Steakhouse on the other side of Colonial just east of Burger King right around where a Wawa sits now.

Don't think they hurt La Cantina's business too much then, so maybe there's room for two steakhouses around there.

La Cantina is an Orlando institution (probably the oldest surviving eatery in town). It has outlived everything from the York Steak House and Western Sizzlin and Sizzler to Roger's/Barney's and Houlihans over the years. Its target market is also quite a bit different from Longhorn (it skews vastly older and more local). The family squabbles may eventually take down La Cantina, but Darden probably won't.

I recall standing in line on the sidewalk as a kid with the grownups in all of their Friday night finery for a couple of hours and it was a who's who of just about everyone in town back then. In those days, the original building was more of a 20's roadhouse than a fine dining establishment and bumped up right against the road as it was likely built back when Colonial Drive was just a skinny two lane brick road called Cheney Highway.

Edited February 26, 2017 by spenser1058

[orlandoguy]

I couldn't agree more. If anything brings down Linda's, it most certainly wouldn't be a Longhorn.

[codypet]

On 2/25/2017 at 8:58 AM, JFW657 said:

If memory serves me correctly, there used to be a Longhorn Steakhouse on the other side of Colonial just east of Burger King right around where a Wawa sits now.

Don't think they hurt La Cantina's business too much then, so maybe there's room for two steakhouses around there.

That was Pizzeria Uno

[JFW657]

21 minutes ago, codypet said:

That was Pizzeria Uno

There was a Longhorn around there too.

It was located at 4050 E. Colonial which is right where the Wawa is now.

The only reason I know the street address is because I Googled "longhorn steakhouse east colonial dr orlando" and found several old restaurant reviews for it. 

I ate there a couple of times, too.

Edited February 27, 2017 by JFW657

[codypet]

Gotcha.  Looking back at the Street View History you can see Uno, then to the right of it is something that appears to have been a Longhorn, and then a former Quincy's.

[jgardnerucf]

5 hours ago, codypet said:

Gotcha.  Looking back at the Street View History you can see Uno, then to the right of it is something that appears to have been a Longhorn, and then a former Quincy's.

Can't forget Casa Giardo.

[JFW657]

2 hours ago, jgardnerucf said:

Can't forget Casa Giardo.

Loved that place. My favorite happy hour.

[HankStrong]

Fat-zolis.  I mean Fazoli's.

[JFW657]

Yeah, I remember Fazoli's. Or as I called it... Fazoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooli's. Et there a few times meself. As I recall, it was next door to BK just to the east and probably in this same building...

...Which, as I also recall, was a Popeye's before that and going back even farther to the early 80's, was a pretty decent taco & burrito place whose name I cannot recall.

Edit: Or maybe the Popeye's was further west right across from OG and next to the Firestone Tire place where there's a Mattress One now.

Anyone?

Edited February 28, 2017 by JFW657