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Packing District / Fairvilla


spenser1058

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6 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

Baldwin Park West. 

Isn’t the Packing District supposed to be a lower price point than Baldwin Park?

I also prefer organic growth to this kind of development but this is what you get when the city hands over development decisions to the developers instead of determining a vision of what citizens believe the community should look like.

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11 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

Isn’t the Packing District supposed to be a lower price point than Baldwin Park?

I also prefer organic growth to this kind of development but this is what you get when the city hands over development decisions to the developers instead of determining a vision of what citizens believe the community should look like.

Give it a rest already, Jesus Christ.

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3 minutes ago, Uncommon said:

Give it a rest already, Jesus Christ.

It’s simply the truth. If this is the method of growth you prefer, so be it, but there are other options.

Too often on this board there is an assumption that the way Orlando has chosen to grow is inscribed on stone tablets. It isn’t.

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20 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

It’s simply the truth. If this is the method of growth you prefer, so be it, but there are other options.

Too often on this board there is an assumption that the way Orlando has chosen to grow is inscribed on stone tablets. It isn’t.

It's nothing different than just about every other city of any significant size has done.

It's been going on for decades and not just in the US.

Some venerable old neighborhoods started out on the drawing boards of real estate developers long ago.

This is not some example of Buddy Dyer being an incompetent or unworthy mayor.

That area would have otherwise just sat there unused and in decay for another fifty years without this.

Yes, the architecture is boring but that is nobody's fault but the architects who follow current design trends rather than try to create something different.

Something that it's not up to the city to micro manage.  

30 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

It’s simply the truth. If this is the method of growth you prefer, so be it, but there are other options.

Too often on this board there is an assumption that the way Orlando has chosen to grow is inscribed on stone tablets. It isn’t.

Puh - lease. 

Finger pointing and blame assigning has unfortunately become SOP in today's society. 

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26 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

It's nothing different than just about every other city of any significant size has done.

It's been going on for decades and not just in the US.

Some venerable old neighborhoods started out on the drawing boards of real estate developers long ago.

This is not some example of Buddy Dyer being an incompetent or unworthy mayor.

That area would have otherwise just sat there unused and in decay for another fifty years without this.

Yes, the architecture is boring but that is nobody's fault but the architects who follow current design trends rather than try to create something different.

Something that it's not up to the city to micro manage.  

Puh - lease. 

Finger pointing and blame assigning has unfortunately become SOP in today's society. 

No, there are plenty of cities that have chosen to go other ways. This is just the cookie-cutter, easy way out.

What’s saddest about it is that Dr. Phillips, although they’ve farmed out the development piece of it, is a locally-based non-profit that should be looking out for the best interests of the community and growth we’ll be proud of fifty years from now. 

Are we in an endless feedback loop where we constantly repeat the development errors of the last fifty years? Let’s use this opportunity to start anew and do better.

It’s not just the architecture, btw, although that’s certainly a part of it. It’s the entire macro environment. These massive overdevelopments aren’t at a scale anyone will ever feel comfortable in. That’s one of the major reasons places like Rosemont and MetroWest began to degrade within a decade or so of being built.

Let’s build places for people again. And it starts way back before anything is built, in the visioning stage, long before it’s handed off to the developers.

If we and our elected officials don’t care about our built environment, why do we think developers ever will?

On another thread, @jackobserves just how dysfunctional Winter Park has become in regard to growth. He’s right, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Winter Garden, by deciding what they want, expressing that vision in a written document and determining the standards required to meet that vision, is achieving the results they want.

What made that possible in WG is involving citizens in the early process, then showing them the results and getting buy-in. It also includes the most powerful movers in the city (in WG’s case, families like the Ropers and Chicones), and backing up the plan with staff support and competent city managers who have a background in the city.

They take all that to the developer with a defined idea of what they’re looking for while providing flexibility as the inevitable pushback comes.

That’s why WG works and WP doesn’t. In Orlando’s case, the vision hasn’t been updated in decades and it shows.

Absent solid decisions about what we want our city to look like, of course the developers are going to take the easiest way out. They aren’t the ones who live and raise their kids here.

Before you say Orlando’s much bigger than WG and so what worked there doesn’t apply, remember that a city is composed of neighborhoods and each one is going to be unique. Downtown is different from College Park and both are different from Lake Nona. The plan should be customized for each section of the city and the different expectations of residents in each.

The bottom line is we’re designing for the residents, not the developers.
 

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2 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

No, there are plenty of cities that have chosen to go other ways. This is just the cookie-cutter, easy way out.

What’s saddest about it is that Dr. Phillips, although they’ve farmed out the development piece of it, is a locally-based non-profit that should be looking out for the best interests of the community and growth we’ll be proud of fifty years from now. 

Are we in an endless feedback loop where we constantly repeat the development errors of the last fifty years? Let’s use this opportunity to start anew and do better.

It’s not just the architecture, btw, although that’s certainly a part of it. It’s the entire macro environment. These massive overdevelopments aren’t at a scale anyone will ever feel comfortable in. That’s one of the major reasons places like Rosemont and MetroWest began to degrade within a decade or so of being built.

Let’s build places for people again. And it starts way back before anything is built, in the visioning stage, long before it’s handed off to the developers.

If we and our elected officials don’t care about our built environment, why do we think developers ever will?

On another thread, @jackobserves just how dysfunctional Winter Park has become in regard to growth. He’s right, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Winter Garden, by deciding what they want, expressing that vision in a written document and determining the standards required to meet that vision, is achieving the results they want.

What made that possible in WG is involving citizens in the early process, then showing them the results and getting buy-in. It also includes the most powerful movers in the city (in WG’s case, families like the Ropers and Chicones), and backing up the plan with staff support and competent city managers who have a background in the city.

They take all that to the developer with a defined idea of what they’re looking for while providing flexibility as the inevitable pushback comes.

That’s why WG works and WP doesn’t. In Orlando’s case, the vision hasn’t been updated in decades and it shows.

Absent solid decisions about what we want our city to look like, of course the developers are going to take the easiest way out. They aren’t the ones who live and raise their kids here.

Before you say Orlando’s much bigger than WG and so what worked there doesn’t apply, remember that a city is composed of neighborhoods and each one is going to be unique. Downtown is different from College Park and both are different from Lake Nona. The plan should be customized for each section of the city and the different expectations of residents in each.

The bottom line is we’re designing for the residents, not the developers.
 

What residents need more input? College Park? They are not that close to this development. Besides, designing for residents will get you suburban communities. Look at the melt down over the Princeton. 

Over scaled buildings at 5 stories tall? 

Winter Garden is a mega suburban community with a nice small scale Downton. Everything surrounding it is sprawl outside of a couple of Neo urbanist communities. 

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3 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

If we and our elected officials don’t care about our built environment, why do we think developers ever will?

On another thread, @jackobserves just how dysfunctional Winter Park has become in regard to growth. He’s right, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Oooh, oooh, easy one, I got this one! Developers care about what they're building because its their money, and they are investing it, and they make more money by maximizing the use of each parcel. Elected officials make their money by convincing people to vote for them, and nothing at all to do with development. And most people, don't want any new development, and when they do, they want it to be small, nothing that overtakes anything existing or makes them possibly move down a spot in the heirarcy. Thats why in areas where the local elected officials take your approach, such as California, have almost no new development, and people are literally homeless on the streets everywhere.

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4 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

It’s simply the truth.

No. It is simply your opinion. I, fwiw, think the Packing Distict is a fantastic idea and hopefully turns out well. 

1 hour ago, jack said:

Winter Garden is a mega suburban community with a nice small scale Downton. Everything surrounding it is sprawl outside of a couple of Neo urbanist communities. 

100% correct. I think spenser must be conflating the cute, little 4 block walking district with the entirety of the city.  Other than their little "downtown" there is not much to crow about.

11 minutes ago, aent said:

Oooh, oooh, easy one, I got this one! Developers care about what they're building because its their money, and they are investing it, and they make more money by maximizing the use of each parcel. Elected officials make their money by convincing people to vote for them, and nothing at all to do with development. And most people, don't want any new development, and when they do, they want it to be small, nothing that overtakes anything existing or makes them possibly move down a spot in the heirarcy. Thats why in areas where the local elected officials take your approach, such as California, have almost no new development, and people are literally homeless on the streets everywhere.

Agreed with the caveat that there should be standards, checks/ balances, etc. I am pretty free market, but everyone needs limits. If developers only intent truly is maxing each parcel, then it is easy to see where that can lead to problems.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...
  • 1 month later...

 

Packing District ‘juice stand’ will serve ice cream, coffee and beer
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-bz-juice-stand-packing-district-foxtail-kellys-20221208-x476k4appzfj5nnzuijofca6m4-story.html

From The Sentinel 

Ice cream from Kelly’s (it’s a shame they couldn’t relocate Goff’s - how fitting would that be?), coffee from Foxtail and BEER from Ravenous Pig Brewing

 

 

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  • 2 months later...
1 hour ago, uncreativeusername said:

I feel you, but I also get it in terms of place-making...between the neighborhood, the high school, the performing arts center, the UCF downtown building...it's almost silly. 

At least the neighborhood, the hospital (it will always be Sand Lake Hospital to me), and the school are roughly in the same place.

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1 hour ago, codypet said:

At least the neighborhood, the hospital (it will always be Sand Lake Hospital to me), and the school are roughly in the same place.

Totally (and I grew up there/went there); but even more confusing given that there are now two performing arts centers and two educational buildings, ha.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

It looks like the Aldi on John Young is getting close to opening. I never really paid much attention to this thread but thank you Urban Planeteers because everything I needed to know about the Packing District is probably in these pages.

We're a one car family since I retired and my husband is mostly retired but lately has been doing some consulting off Silver Star road so I drive him there and back. In the morning we go up SOBT from Michigan so he has time to eat his breakfast from McDonalds. It's always an interesting ride. One afternoon I saw a woman in not much clothing dancing against the closed Flashdancer bar. When I was a young health inspector my area for restaurants was SOBT and downtown. Happy to see Art's still there! (and still good. We went for lunch one day and the guy at the register asked if we'd been there before and I explained I'd been his health inspector in 1989...we both laughed.)

We've sat at the light at Princeton and NOBT for quite a few mornings figuring out what was going in and then it dawned on me to just come here and find  out.

One question....will there really be a round about at NOBT and Princeton? I'm picturing chaos. I grew up in NJ where circles and jug handles (making a right hand turn to ultimately make a left) were the way of the world and enjoy driving without having to deal with them. Whenever we went to NJ in the early years of our marriage my husband eagerly handed over the keys to me rather than get caught up in the circles. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 7/6/2023 at 7:20 PM, angela1117 said:

One question....will there really be a round about at NOBT and Princeton? 

Thanks for sharing the historical anecdote. Sometimes we forget that every other car on the road around us has a story to tell.

OBT and Princeton will be a signalized intersection. The roundabout will be to the west, in front of the new YMCA.

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13 hours ago, Jerry95 said:

Thanks for sharing the historical anecdote. Sometimes we forget that every other car on the road around us has a story to tell.

OBT and Princeton will be a signalized intersection. The roundabout will be to the west, in front of the new YMCA.

Thanks for clearing that up! We just weren't seeing how a roundabout would've worked at 441 and Princeton.

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