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Lake Nona - Medical City


scottb411

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1 hour ago, aent said:

I really don't have too many complaints with Lake Nona. They're "town center" seems to be being built with parking garages and walkablity. Yes, there's the sprawl around it, but its gotta be somewhere, and its at least built with bike paths to a real jobs center that seems to also be getting real shopping and dining as well. Having places like Winter Garden is generally viewed as a positive on this forum, and from what Lake Nona appears to be doing, it should be more dense, and IMO better looking then that. They dedicated much more land to their town center then Avalon Park, and seem to be building it right. It seems like it could eventually develop into a true asset that really adds to the area like other nearby cities, such as Winter Park. Yes, it'd be nice if everyone there located in downtown and we were able to redevelop the west side of I4, but it was clear from day 1 that a few of the players involved just had no interest at all in being downtown. This was, IMO, just about the best we could have got with the players we had.

My point was never that LNTC is a bad development or that I dislike anything about the design or layout, etc, etc.

My only issue is that I don't like seeing development encroaching into previously unspoiled areas for numerous environmental reasons.

I'm afraid that one day, urbanization will begin eating up too much wilderness to the south and east of there.

Lake Nona WILL spur more and more development. And as tax revenue and budgets get tighter and tighter, I'm afraid the temptation to increase the tax base by approving more of it, will just be too much for the county govt to resist.

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I'm still on the fence about Lake Nona. Overall, I agree with everything @spenser1058 said and am looking forward to seeing it grow, but my main issues with Lake Nona are outside the "Medical City" itself.

The sprawling Narcoossee corridor has removed some important community building blocks from the town center that would make it into a real city: Lake Nona High School, LN Middle School, Valencia College LN, Florida Hostpial at LN, two Publix stores, etc. I know that's not necessarily the fault of Tavistock, but still sheds light on some gaping holes in the area's planning and coordination efforts. 

My other gripe is transportation. The airport connection is great, but without light rail, streetcars, or even a bus system, it feels very closed off from the airport and especially the "real" Orlando. Century City and New Paris are built more like Baldwin Park; Lake Nona is built more like Celebration or Avalon Park. Transportation, at least, can be added later. 

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1 hour ago, JFW657 said:

My point was never that LNTC is a bad development or that I dislike anything about the design or layout, etc, etc.

My only issue is that I don't like seeing development encroaching into previously unspoiled areas for numerous environmental reasons.

I'm afraid that one day, urbanization will begin eating up too much wilderness to the south and east of there.

Lake Nona WILL spur more and more development. And as tax revenue and budgets get tighter and tighter, I'm afraid the temptation to increase the tax base by approving more of it, will just be too much for the county govt to resist.

Get used to it.  The Ranch property is in the planning stages...I've seen them...  big things down the line...which surprised me because I didn't know you could develop out there.  For example, the ISB exit is part of a future corridor.  So is Osceola Parkway when they extend it east.

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3 hours ago, alex said:

I'm still on the fence about Lake Nona. Overall, I agree with everything @spenser1058 said and am looking forward to seeing it grow, but my main issues with Lake Nona are outside the "Medical City" itself.

The sprawling Narcoossee corridor has removed some important community building blocks from the town center that would make it into a real city: Lake Nona High School, LN Middle School, Valencia College LN, Florida Hostpial at LN, two Publix stores, etc. I know that's not necessarily the fault of Tavistock, but still sheds light on some gaping holes in the area's planning and coordination efforts. 

My other gripe is transportation. The airport connection is great, but without light rail, streetcars, or even a bus system, it feels very closed off from the airport and especially the "real" Orlando. Century City and New Paris are built more like Baldwin Park; Lake Nona is built more like Celebration or Avalon Park. Transportation, at least, can be added later. 

And to be fair, with those items you specifically mentioned (outside of Publix), are the government's facilities... they're the ones who aren't interested in urban style developments because it costs more money and there is no advantage at all to them for doing it. With the schools especially, the goal generally is to design them like prisions for the safety of the children these days. Urban design makes that more difficult and expensive, so the desire is generally to keep schools away from homes... which is counter productive. And thats not a republican or democrat issue, they both seem to agree on that point, and building a more urban/dense K12 school is a last resort. I'd also say thats an issue throughout the country, and not at all unique to Orlando. Some areas may have no choice but to build more dense, but for the most part, its not like the old days... school design is primarily based on security.

On the transportation issue, Lake Nona wanted to participate in the maglev system that the airport authority shot down, there was a planned stop in the town center for that. So again, they tried... the government didn't cooperate. Obviously light rail, street cars, and buses would be nice, but again, is that really the developers responsibility? Whose supposed to pay for operation, especially after its built out?

It seems we're throwing blame on developers, or to some extent one particular party, but it seems to me nearly all of it here is entirely misplaced.

I'm  not a tree hugger (although I do consider myself an environmentalist) so I also want to remind everyone that everything started out as nature, and we cleared it all. It had to start somewhere for Orlando to develop into a city, as did Disney, Universal/I-Drive, Winter Park, and all these other things we're proud of. And I'm confident that when each and every one of these started, someone who lived nearby didn't want to see trees cleared for them. The trees were cleared, in this case, for literally life saving medical research, and a community and industry to support that. And in other places, they're cleared so people can live comfortably the way they want. I understand many here want to live in dense, urban areas (as I am a fan of too), but we have to understand that others want to have their backyard for the dogs to run around without them watching, more privacy, more peace and quiet, and I firmly believe its entirely unfair for you to say (whether through the government or otherwise) they should not be allowed to get the size property they want for their home (at a fair market price).

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13 hours ago, aent said:

And to be fair, with those items you specifically mentioned (outside of Publix), are the government's facilities... And thats not a republican or democrat issue...

Right, I wasn't solely blaming Tavistock, but I'll still argue that there's a lot of room to improve the planning partnership between Tavistock and the City/County. I'll also say that the developer is getting a good amount of public services and incentives. They're not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts--they're making a ton of money off of this.

But I completely agree with you on the schools and transportation issues. And yes, I'm always in awe of how non-partisan bad urban planning can be. 

13 hours ago, aent said:

And in other places, they're cleared so people can live comfortably the way they want... others want to have their backyard for the dogs to run around without them watching, more privacy, more peace and quiet, and I firmly believe its entirely unfair for you to say (whether through the government or otherwise) they should not be allowed to get the size property they want for their home (at a fair market price).

I just wish "fair market price" included the true cost of living on a greenfield site 20 miles from the city: water, sewer, trash, roads, transit, fire protection, police protection, new schools, postal service, environmental impact, etc.

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  • 2 months later...
29 minutes ago, aent said:

Except it doesn't appear to be proposed at all near Lake Nona? It appears its proposed for east of St Cloud?

I guess it's relative since it's 24000 acres (WDW originally had 27,443 so it's a comparable tract)  and it notes it spills over into Orange where Lake Nona is. Also, Tavistock's involved, the Nona developer.

Lake Nona seems to becoming an amorphous term not unlike "Pine Hills" is for west Orlando. The actual Pine Hills subdivision was originally a development centered along Pine Hills Rd  between Colonial and Silver Star but today is a term that includes neighborhoods north to south from Clarcona-Ocoee Rd to Old Winter Garden and east to west from JYP to Good Homes Rd.

In a proper sense you're correct but Lake Nona seems to be the blanket term for much of SE Orange these days.

 

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2 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

I guess it's relative since it's 24000 acres (WDW originally had 27,443 so it's a comparable tract)  and it notes it spills over into Orange where Lake Nona is. Also, Tavistock's involved, the Nona developer.

Lake Nona seems to becoming an amorphous term not unlike "Pine Hills" is for west Orlando. The actual Pine Hills subdivision was originally a development centered along Pine Hills Rd  between Colonial and Silver Star but today is a term that includes neighborhoods north to south from Clarcona-Ocoee Rd to Old Winter Garden and east to west from JYP to Good Homes Rd.

In a proper sense you're correct but Lake Nona seems to be the blanket term for much of SE Orange these days.

 

The two tracts don't even appear connected (this is the Osceloa tract of land its proposed for, not even the Orange county one)? And Tavistock is giving it a different name, the proposal is a different name, etc... The only mention of Lake Nona appears to be this article.... and Tavistock likely would call it Lake Nona if they felt they could to gain on the marketing they've done for that area.

 

The name for these 24000 acres appears to be Sunbridge according to Tavistock

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  • 3 weeks later...
36 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

And now a Lake Nona Resort. Is there anything that WON'T be at Lake Nona?

https://m.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2017/11/16/a-health-resort-and-spa-with-a-15-acre-lagoon-is-coming-to-lake-nona

From Orlando Weekly

Wow.  I love this thing.  Architectonic's fingerprint is all over the design of the hotel.  A big resort in the SE quadrant is a great "anchor", if you will, for the area.

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I'm not sure I haven't seen it myself.   A friend asked.  I saw a white subdivision wall on Google street view and asked her if that was it and she said, "No, the wall I’m referring to is an actual wall made of white bricks as opposed to a fence. It is much taller and stately."

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  • 2 months later...

A pic of Pixon Apartments and first commercial tenants in a mixed use project at Nona. Dare we say it? That's a better looking structure than some of the apartments we've gotten downtown along North Orange.

http://orlando-rising.com/tavistock-announces-first-commercial-tenants-pixon-apartments/

From Orlando Rising

 

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On 2/5/2018 at 7:05 AM, spenser1058 said:

A pic of Pixon Apartments and first commercial tenants in a mixed use project at Nona. Dare we say it? That's a better looking structure than some of the apartments we've gotten downtown along North Orange.

http://orlando-rising.com/tavistock-announces-first-commercial-tenants-pixon-apartments/

From Orlando Rising

 

All the more reason why I'd love to see a Tavistock development downtown.  They attach their reputation to everything they do.

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  • 4 weeks later...

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