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Downtown South (Sunrail/Amtrak, SODO, Orlando Health, Lymmo, Orange/Michigan Avenues)


SuperMan11MS

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  • 3 weeks later...

Drove past the Amtrak station and then stopped as an Amtrak train pulled up. On the end of it were a number of vintage rail cars. I had no idea that was something they did.

 

Yep, they sure do. 

 

Small story: The first website I was ever paid to build was for a guy who owned an old Canadian passenger rail car. He would pay a flat fee to Amtrak and sell seats on his car. Most of these trips were out of the Los Angeles area at the time, but I know he has done some transcontinental trips as well. I built that site about 15 years ago and it existed until about a year ago when he folded his operations into LA Rail, here: http://www.larail.com/

 

By today's standards the website I built was not great, but it helped me get my start as a software engineer.

 

Never took a trip but always wanted to.

Edited by castorvx
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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

2121 S Orange - New plaza instead of Townhomes?

Plans submitted show renderings of a Corner Bakery Cafe and a Mattress Firm.

Beats the empty block we have there now.

http://www.cityoforlando.net/city-planning/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2015/03/MPBProjectOverview2015-04_ZON2015-00005.pdf

 

 

The working name is now "Axiom Plaza"  Permit application on 6/29 for the 8,624 sq ft building and double dumpster enclosure

Edited by Jernigan
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  • 2 months later...

Big news on the south side.

City is annexing what is currently a mobile home park on Pineloch east of Orange Ave.   Changing the zoning for mixed use commercial and residential.

That trailer park is an eyesore and the potential for a property that size is fairly exciting.   The Orange/Michigan vision plan includes Pineloch and this would also be the southern end of LYMMO

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Big news on the south side.

City is annexing what is currently a mobile home park on Pineloch east of Orange Ave.   Changing the zoning for mixed use commercial and residential.

That trailer park is an eyesore and the potential for a property that size is fairly exciting.   The Orange/Michigan vision plan includes Pineloch and this would also be the southern end of LYMMO

YES! I just drove past this mobile home park and thought, "Why?". It is so out of place. 

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Coming from downtown it is.  Coming from the south, it isn't too far off from Southern Oak Gun & Pawn and Dixies fried chicken ;)

Seriously though, certain parts of town have such an obvious city/county divide.   S Orange is one and Old Cheney separating Baldwin from 436/50 is another

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This is a topic of great interest to me and I think I brought this up somewhere on these boards years ago, when I was relatively new to the Orlando area.  Back then I was young and stupid.  I am much older now and… less stupid, and I have gained more insight into the topic over the years.  That said, I’m still not entirely sure what I think would be the best arrangement for the shaping of the region.  While I completely understand the benefits of city/county consolidation, I am still inclined not to be a proponent of it.  My primary concern against it is the identity and continuity of a city unit and the dilution thereof that would result in a consolidation, especially in the case of a geographically large area.  What I would much rather see is for the city to round out its rather ridiculous current boundary lines and fill in the logical unincorporated urban gaps (e.g. S. Orange, Old Cheney/Colonial area, unincorporated pockets along S. OBT/Holden Heights area, etc.) and for the remaining developed unincorporated areas on the periphery to incorporate into their own self-governing town/communities.  For example, I would like to see Waterford, Avalon Park, Hunters Creek, Goldenrod/Aloma, Pine Hills, etc. incorporate into independent towns/cities (I hesitate to call suburban communities "cities").   

Orlando, as defined by its official city limits, is heavily suburban in nature, considering that areas like Metrowest, Lee Vista, and now Lake Nona are all within “city limits”.  I would rather not see further suburbanization of Orlando with the consolidation of unincorporated county lands into city limits.  Other than superficially boosting total population figures for the city, a la Jacksonville, I don’t see the benefit from the perspective of the character of the City and the region as a whole.  I’d rather see the City of Orlando focus on its core and devote optimal resources to making that core great, while allowing the peripheral communities to develop according their own unique characters ultimately serving as secondary communities to the core urban area.  In my eyes, Winter Park is an excellent example.  It is a thriving community with a very distinct character of its own, yet it is very clearly secondary to Orlando in the larger scheme of the region.    

Orange County is not set up for optimal urban governance, and I would argue that it shouldn’t be in the first place.  This is evident in the very noticeable divide in parts of town where there are unincorporated pockets amongst incorporated city areas, as Jernigan alluded to in his post.  I would argue that consolidation of the City and County would dilute the effectiveness of the City as far as planning and development go, making it more like the County than vice versa, i.e. stretched too thin.  Let Orlando focus on making its traditional urban area great and let the peripheral communities direct their own affairs.  Let the County handle broader, non-urban, services.    

Maybe this is all splitting hairs.  My thoughts on this are certainly influenced from having grown up in another area where the separation of county and cities within were more clear.  And my perceived benefits are certainly more abstract in nature than the easily identifiable efficiencies that would be gained in a consolidation.  I also realize the idea of incorporating numerous additional cities/towns is highly unlikely given the procedural hurdles, not to mention budgetary constraints among other reasons.  But I think it would ultimately help better shape our region as a whole with stronger communities while enhancing the urban core as a more distinct, dynamic and desirable place overall.     

Totally off thread's topic... I apologize in advance.

 

 

Edited by GRS328
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East (of) Orlando went through a visioning process through Jennifer Thompson while she was with the East Orlando Chamber.  The plan that came out of that included incorporating the area roughly east of Orlando to Bithlo and Oviedo south to somewhere near the 528 as a city.  I remember them stating that they had their own assets, and had an economy focused on UCF and Defense (Research Park, Lockheed).   I think the proposed name was Avalon Lakes.

It's worth remembering that Counties are simply a mechanism for the state to divide up it's services.  Orange County and others have extreme overreach in that regard.  I'd love to see the Counties go bare bones on their services and encourage people to move to a City or to truly live a rural lifestyle supported by some basic services.  

Either way, Orlando should treat every annexation as a business transaction and has no reason to grow for the sake of growing as there is plenty of infill opportunities.

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