Downtown Orlando Project Discussion

[spenser1058]

4 minutes ago, W7edwin said:

 

gotcha.. thanks guys. It would be cool to at least save the newsroom into whatever will be built  in the future. as for the brownfield i hope thats cleaned up in the near future... we dont want more delays in advancing downtown 

Also, to show you how wacky this got, there was a car dealership and a Phillips 66 service station along Colonial on the north edge of the property which the Sentinel bought years ago. At one point, there was an effort to hold the paper responsible for any contamination they did. I’m not sure how that part worked out, either. 

[JFW657]

I would absolutely like to see this portion of the Sentinel building saved....

....but the rest of it would be no great loss.

Still plenty of room for a couple of high rises and a decent sized park.

[AndyPok1]

I'm all for integrating facades or that small building, but making it so that Colonial to Livingston isn't a dead zone is the most imperative thing.  Two full blocks can do placemaking and create a transitional district that is sorely needed. 

ALL HAIL THE INK DISTRICT

Edited August 14, 2020 by AndyPok1

[spenser1058]

6 minutes ago, AndyPok1 said:

I'm all for integrating facades or that small building, but making it so that Colonial to Livingston isn't a dead zone is the most imperative thing.  Two full blocks can do placemaking and create a transitional district that is sorely needed. 

ALL HAIL THE INK DISTRICT

Or, we could have a mayor with some cojones to go back and rewrite the building height ordinances. As we know, however, this is the mayor who, in 17 years, has never crossed a developer. He’s so deep in their pockets he can’t see Narnia.

I do like Ink District though - that rocks!

Edited August 14, 2020 by spenser1058

[cwetteland]

Wait, what?  Our current building height ordinance was written by a mayor?    They can do that?

[spenser1058]

They can’t exceed FAA limits, of course and the mayor m also has to have the vote of the council. But just as they instituted step downs as they preserved the core neighborhoods, it’s  also possible to go the other way. It’s the sort of thing a strong-mayor form of government is designed to do and Mayor Bill played it like Charlie Daniels played a fiddle.

Some in the Frederick administration have already acknowledged they should not have left midtown or NORA so open. One could also make the case for further restrictions south of Colonial. The developers would howl, just as they did when they limited the zoning in places like Eola Heights and Thornton Park.

One of the goals in all that activity was to increase density. By restricting the amount of open land available, it forces developers to go vertical. By the time the restrictions were put in place, the last three buildings erected on Orange Ave. south of Colonial were Sun Bank, The First, FA and the Courthouse. There had also been three towers completed north of Orange, the Travelers, the Radisson and Florida National. By restricting the residential areas and Parramore, it was assumed Orange Ave would build towers north and south.

During Glenda’s era, we got some towers, unfortunately none as tall as before. 

By the time Buddy came along and as soon as the first stubby was proposed on N. Orange, he should have fought to pull back further both north and south of Colonial. The easiest option would have been a moratorium until demand caught up. As we know, however, in 17 years, Buddy has never tried or experimented with possible solutions. Instead, if a developer wanted it, then that was it. 

Buddy even went so far as to make it appear like he had pulled off a coup when one of the prime lots downtown at Orange and Amelia got a mid-rise, undistinguished apartment complex.

If you had a vision for downtown, that never would have happened. But we have a mayor without a vision who believes his job is to always say yes to developers and to not care about the quality of downtown.

It works for the developers and apparently everyone here is content with a mediocre downtown because I am the only one who seems to think we could do better with another leader. We’ll never know just what we might accomplish, though, because, like Buddy, everyone assumes nothing can ever be different. 

A good leader would decide where we need to go, whether it be density, to increase downtown retail options or to leverage the historic core to increase the attraction to downtown. We’ve seen none of those things happening in 17 years. How do we know? One easy way is to listen to Buddy’s laundry list speeches at the State of Downtown and State of the City. Believe me, if they were underway, we’d hear about it. Instead, crickets.

Also, go to a council work session and look to see these types of proposals. Also, give boards like the HPB the authority to suggest how we might seek to maximize use of historic buildings.

Have you seen any of those things? Nope, because they haven’t been tried. The only proposals acted upon are what a developer drops in the in box.

Compare that with even a small city like Winter Garden that decided what their downtown should look like, sticks to those rules and even goes out and solicits those items on the wish list they don’t have. It’s all about trying.

Edited August 15, 2020 by spenser1058

[AmIReal]

36 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

I am the only one who seems to think we could do better with another leader

Very keen observation.

[jack]

20 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

Tribune Publishing, the Chicago firm that owns the Sentinel, is in a mess and no one knows exactly what will come of it but the PEF that currently has its claws on it will likely leave what’s left worse than it was.

Whatever becomes of the actual “digital news source” (the paper hasn’t been published here in a long time), it’s important to save the newsroom because of the history behind it (longtime publisher and owner Martin Andersen had a hand in almost any significant Orlando history after WWII).

As for the brownfield issues, the Sentinel delayed remediation from contamination that leached from the Sentinel site over as far as Lake Concord. I’m not sure of the current status. It’s believed the chemicals from the printing process as well as the daily use of heavy trucks on the site are the issue. So far as I know, the newsroom was not considered a primary sauce of the pollution.

I believe the clean up is still ongoing. But it may be mostly monitoring at this point. 

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1995-10-26-9510260405-story.html

[Jerry95]

On 8/14/2020 at 4:57 PM, AndyPok1 said:

ALL HAIL THE INK DISTRICT

Too good a name, my money’s on something lame like Sentinel Village

[spenser1058]

I’ve long thought a great use for the Sentinel property would be to develop a retail zone to serve UCF/VD and the other downtown apartments.

A couple of relatively small anchors (a free-standing Macy’s Backstage -their version of Ross or TJMaxx- and a collegiate size Target?) as well as other smaller retail.

The trick is, unlike handing over a million from the city and letting the developer do as he please as was done for the demolishing of Colonial Plaza, any incentives from Buddy would require an urban-type facility with easy bus access and a small street grid with facades that complement the historic core.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/08/15/macys-backstage-keeps-expanding-despite-covid-19/

From Motley Fool

Edited August 17, 2020 by spenser1058

[spenser1058]

Another fun thing to do would be to use some of the outdoor art budget and try to see if OMA or the Parks department or someone could shake loose part of the Morse’s neon collection among the stores (along with TREES). They could be encased in plexiglas if needed to keep them safe and work with OUC to defray electricity costs.

[Jolly Roger's Crackers]

Biked the Urban Trail today. Heading southwest (approaching Magnolia Ave) the trail borders the OUC Lake Highland Substation on the left (rail tracks on the right). I do  know that the substation is expanding: LINK. A huge amount of earth has been excavated....and it has exposed what appears to be the concrete foundations of a long lost structure there. Just wondering if anyone might know what it could have been. It's in the "angle" of Weber St and Highland Ave....just northwest of the current substation. Whatever it was it was fairly large. Just curious. Cheers.

Edited August 23, 2020 by Jolly Roger's Crackers

[spenser1058]

14 minutes ago, Jolly Roger's Crackers said:

Biked the Urban Trail today. Heading southwest (approaching Magnolia Ave) the trail borders the OUC Lake Highland Substation on the left (rail tracks on the right). I do  know that the substation is expanding: LINK. A huge amount of earth has been excavated....and it has exposed what appears to be the concrete foundations of a long lost structure there. Just wondering if anyone might know what it could have been. It's in the "angle" of Weber St and Highland Ave....just northwest of the current substation. Whatever it was it was fairly large. Just curious. Cheers.

My guess is it would also have been associated with OUC (or its predecessor utility owned by the Cheney family) but that’s only a guess. I’ll nose around some. Great find!

[Jolly Roger's Crackers]

 

 

52 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

My guess is it would also have been associated with OUC (or its predecessor utility owned by the Cheney family) but that’s only a guess. I’ll nose around some. Great find!

Do your sleuthing dude (as only you know how to do). This is kinda where it is (to the best of my memory):

(size and locale might be "slightly off"..but not by much).

Cheers.

 

Edited August 23, 2020 by Jolly Roger's Crackers

[spenser1058]

29 minutes ago, Jolly Roger's Crackers said:

 

 

Do your sleuthing dude (as only you know how to do). This is kinda where it is (to the best of my memory):

(size and locale might be "slightly off"..but not by much).

Cheers.

 

The thought that came to mind was that when they tried to move the capital to Orlando in the mid-60’s someone got a little overenthusiastic and started digging a foundation for the Capitol building but I’m sure it never got that far! (I did once see some drawings from Orlando history buff Tom Tart - he was a lawyer for OUC- of what a Capitol could have looked like on old OUC property on that side of Lake Ivanhoe, though they were just an unofficial rendering).

Edited August 23, 2020 by spenser1058

[JFW657]

42 minutes ago, Jolly Roger's Crackers said:

 

 

Do your sleuthing dude (as only you know how to do). This is kinda where it is (to the best of my memory):

(size and locale might be "slightly off"..but not by much).

Cheers.

I would guess it's probably from the old OUC boiler building.

I looked online and couldn't find anything, then remembered a photo I took from the shoulder of I-4 around Ivanhoe Blvd back around 1985.

This is a picture of a print I happened to have handy....

It was torn down sometime within the last 20 - 30 years, either during the 90's or early 00's.

[Jolly Roger's Crackers]

14 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

I would guess it's probably from the old OUC boiler building.

Interesting. Good find. It does look like a tall (large) structure and the location looks about (or pretty close to) right. The foundation I saw was very deep in the ground...necessary for a building of this size, I reckon. Anyway... Cheers.

[JFW657]

7 minutes ago, Jolly Roger's Crackers said:

Interesting. Good find. It does look like a tall (large) structure and the location looks about (or pretty close to) right. The foundation I saw was very deep in the ground...necessary for a building of this size, I reckon. Anyway... Cheers.

Here's another pic of the same building I found on an OUC history website....

http://historyofouc.com/chapters/chapter3.php

.

Edited August 23, 2020 by JFW657

[codypet]

Yea wasn't that the old plant before Stanton became the Orlando plant?  My coworkers and I were looking at old aerials and I think we tracked it down to the late 80's as well.  They just buried the foundations.  With the expansion planned, building on the old foundations wouldn't be suitable, so the old foundations have to come out.  This is the 1980 aerial below.

[JFW657]

11 minutes ago, codypet said:

Yea wasn't that the old plant before Stanton became the Orlando plant?  My coworkers and I were looking at old aerials and I think we tracked it down to the late 80's as well.  They just buried the foundations.  With the expansion planned, building on the old foundations wouldn't be suitable, so the old foundations have to come out.  This is the 1980 aerial below.

I recall it being directly behind the portion they saved and used for the local arts up until DPAC opened.

One of the first thing you'd see coming into downtown west bound on I-4 was the old smoke stacks.

[spenser1058]

2 hours ago, codypet said:

Yea wasn't that the old plant before Stanton became the Orlando plant?  My coworkers and I were looking at old aerials and I think we tracked it down to the late 80's as well.  They just buried the foundations.  With the expansion planned, building on the old foundations wouldn't be suitable, so the old foundations have to come out.  This is the 1980 aerial below.

You’re right. That plant was behind the Cheney plant that remains. I had totally forgotten about it after all these years.

[Jolly Roger's Crackers]

19 hours ago, codypet said:

Yea wasn't that the old plant before Stanton became the Orlando plant?  My coworkers and I were looking at old aerials and I think we tracked it down to the late 80's as well.  They just buried the foundations.  With the expansion planned, building on the old foundations wouldn't be suitable, so the old foundations have to come out.  This is the 1980 aerial below.

Yeah that looks about right. I went by there again today and the photo I'd posted was a bit off (with my estimate of the angle of the building foundation). It definitely parallels the rail lines like in that old photo. Bulldozers and shovels are chopping it to bits as we speak. Thanks for the input, everybody. Cheers.

Edited August 24, 2020 by Jolly Roger's Crackers

[spenser1058]

Drug wholesaler MedShorts to move HQ downtown:

https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2020/08/25/drug-firm-medshorts-to-move-hq-to-downtown-orlando.html
 

From OBJ (paywall)

[dcluley98]

Looks like they are re-doing the tanks at the downtown Colonial and Orange 7-11.   All pumps are fenced off and shut down currently. 

[orange87]

On 8/25/2020 at 3:26 PM, spenser1058 said:

Drug wholesaler MedShorts to move HQ downtown:

https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2020/08/25/drug-firm-medshorts-to-move-hq-to-downtown-orlando.html
 

From OBJ (paywall)

I couldn't tell because of the paywall. Did they say where in downtown they're planning to move?