Plan for Former Orlando RV Dealership Draws Traffic Concerns
Residents close to the West Fairbanks Avenue property welcome new retail and restaurants but fear repercussions of bringing traffic to an area already considered congested
April 28, 2026
By Kathryn Brudzinski
Plans for a commercial redevelopment at the site of the former Orlando RV dealership along West Fairbanks Avenue are stalled, for now, after residents brought up concerns related to parking and traffic.
Winter Park’s Planning & Zoning Board will meet at noon today for a workshop to discuss the project and traffic concerns in the area of Fairbanks, Denning Drive and Kentucky Avenue. No vote is scheduled until the following board meeting on May 5.
During the board’s April 7 meeting members opted to push the vote until next month after hearing from nearby residents and representatives of the Holler family, which owns the property through DI Partners LLLP. Roger Holler III, great-grandson of Bill Holler – the former vice president of General Motors who founded the family’s automotive business – is listed as president of the company in state records.
DI Partners wants to build four one-story buildings totaling 29,760 square feet for shops and restaurants at the former RV dealership.
Though there appeared to be support for the concept, including a recommendation for approval from city staff, people who live nearby raised questions about parking and traffic.
“We just want to make sure it’s managed and mitigated so that way we maintain the accessibility and the safety for our neighborhood, for drivers, as well as pedestrians and cyclists,” said Sonia McLean, who lives with her husband on Kentucky Avenue. “…We’ve always embraced our commercial neighbors. We understand that concessions have to be made, we just want to make sure that we don’t lose the flexibility and charm of our neighborhood.”
Documents submitted to the city show the location of the proposed development to be known as Fairbanks Crossing.
The project’s approval is subject to certain conditions and other requests by the city, like the inclusion of on-street parking along Holt Avenue “to help calm traffic, provide additional convenient parking for patrons and create a safer and more comfortable pedestrian environment.”
Z Development Services Chief Executive Bob Ziegnefuss, who is managing the project, said the group plans to address each of the city’s conditions for approval, but said some issues like street parking would offer a “very limited benefit” as the project could likely only offer six to seven spaces.
“The concern that we have on the applicant side of this is that this could be an extensive cost for a small community benefit here to get that street parking, but we do want to look at it,” Ziegenfuss said. “We are committed to help and do what we can. I guess we want to hear tonight as part of the discussion, what’s the true desire here? There’s two different things that happen in a situation like this – is the desire to get parking or is the desire for traffic calming?”
While the project plans to provide a total of 199 parking spaces overall, exceeding the minimum code requirement of 175 spaces, concerns from residents centered around a desire for both accessibility to parking as well as measures to limit traffic.
Winter Park attorney Frank Hamner, longtime representative of the Holler family companies, said the goal is to construct the redevelopment in compliance with code while still satisfying the city’s needs and seeking the “least possible number of variances.”
“Even though we can under park this spot or park to code, we’re overparking,” Hamner said. “This is not us trying to force something through and asking for a bunch of variances. This is a long, thought out two-and-a-half to three-year process to get to where we are today.”
Susie Stein, another Winter Park resident located on North Kentucky Avenue, said she is excited about the project, but her primary concerns also centered on parking, safety and how the increased traffic would affect her neighborhood.
“I know that they have overcompensated for the parking, but I don’t know how you control people from parking in this new shopping area who are going to be at the baseball games at Rollins, doing other things in the neighborhood,” Stein said. “So then the overflow parking is going to end up on our street, which is a very, very narrow street already, and when cars are parked on both sides, you are literally squeezing yourself through.”
The proposed redevelopment, which provides access from Holt Avenue and Capen Avenue, intentionally avoids offering direct vehicle access to Fairbanks Avenue and Denning Drive.
But Winter Park resident Brian Barnard, who also lives along North Kentucky Avenue, said the traffic on Denning Drive is at a point where it’s “already overloaded,” causing travel issues for him currently.
“My house is on the west side of Denning, and I can’t get out of our alley in order to get onto the street,” Barnard said. “I have to drive down Denning, probably two or three blocks, then turn around…I’m not saying that I don’t want this project — I just want us to be a little bit thoughtful.”
Board member Alex Stringfellow acknowledged residents’ concerns, saying there’s “an existing issue with traffic” in the area, but that when developments are reviewed by the Planning & Zoning board “traffic is not considered the applicant’s responsibility.”
“In this case, generally speaking, [the applicant’s] contributions to the city to provide turn lanes and so forth… is offsetting mathematically, what the traffic impact is,” he said. “[We] hear what you’re saying and definitely understand that there’s safety concerns out there. There’s a limited amount that we can do here on this particular item, because it represents a small percentage of the existing issue and contributes a small percentage of the ongoing issue.”
Board members ultimately agreed concerns regarding traffic and safety warranted further discussion before any approval could be made. As a result, the workshop was scheduled for today at noon.
“My gut feeling is that answering what makes sense on Holt Avenue from the applicant’s perspective and based on what’s existing out there may provide some answers to safe travel through that area, what parking is going to look like and how people will move in that area,” said Alex Stringfellow. “I don’t want to promise that all these problems are going to go away — it’s a very congested area.”
Correction: A quotation in the original version of this story was incorrectly attributed to Planning & Zoning board member Jason Johnson. The quotation has now been attributed correctly to Alex Stringfellow.
WinterParkVoiceEditor@gmail.com
While I am flattered to have been mistaken for my fellow board member, the younger–and much better-looking–Alex Stringfellow, there are a number of comments near the end of the article that were attributed to me that were actually made by Alex. I would appreciate it if the author would correct this mistake.
Thank you Jason. We have posted a correction to the story.
From the information in this article it looks like a reasonable request from the Holler family. Over parking for this kind of retail area is a good idea and should be supported.