by Beth Kassab | Dec 16, 2023 | City Commission, News, Zoning and Development
Commission approves townhomes, Ravaudage incentives and smoking ban
Packed agenda at final meeting of the year yields policy and project decisions
Dec. 16, 2023
By Beth Kassab
City Commissioners approved a 53-unit project, now including 15 single-family homes and 38 townhomes, in west Winter Park near Winter Park Village.
The project, known as Winter Park Commons, underwent extensive revisions with single-family homes now along the perimeter after residents complained the multi-story complex did not meld with the rest of the neighborhood.
While some residents continued to express skepticism about the development planned for a former church property, Mayor Phil Anderson expressed gratitude for the residents’ participating, saying it “made a difference” and also thanked the developer for being willing to make changes.
Other policy decisions at the Dec. 13 meeting include:
To comment or read comments from others, click here →
by Beth Kassab | Dec 9, 2023 | City Commission, News, Uncategorized, Zoning and Development
Winter Park Commons, Ravaudage incentives and Seven Oaks construction
This week’s City Commission meeting will bring potential resolutions and updates on several major projects
Dec. 9, 2023
By Beth Kassab
This week’s City Commission meeting, the final one of the year, is likely to bring some answers to questions about several major projects including a proposed townhome complex on the west side, a large mixed-use development and the construction of Seven Oaks Park.
Here’s an overview of what to expect at Wednesday’s meeting:
- Winter Park Commons. Commissioners tabled in November a decision on a 53-unit multi-family housing project near Winter Park Village over concerns from residents that the multi-story townhomes were incompatible with neighboring smaller, single-family homes. The developer’s revised plans will go before the commission this week. The project remains 53 units, but now includes more single-family homes in place of some of the townhome units. Plans now also include five on-street parking spaces and a revised driveway on Webster Avenue.
- Ravaudage incentives. The city originally agreed to reimburse the developer of of Ravaudage, a mixed-use project, a maximum of $1.2 million for road improvements. The developer is now seeking an additional $300,000 for improvements that weren’t included in the first agreement because the land was not yet annexed into Winter Park. The commission tabled a decision on the new reimbursement in November, questioning the justification. According to city documents, two new businesses along the stretch in question — Bank OZK and Lifetime Fitness — would pay enough in mobility fees to cover the cost of the city’s reimbursement to the developer.
- Seven Oaks Park. The cost of the city’s newest park increased by about $800,000 to $5 million since the city first estimated the price a few years ago. With construction now slated to start on Dec. 18, city staff is recommending the City Commission postpone wifi upgrades to reallocate $220,000 use another $320,000 that had been set aside for planning studies. Staff also recommends another $250,000 come from the city’s contingency fund to make up the deficit. If approved, construction would begin this month and the park would be finished in the Fall of 2024, according to the staff memorandum.
WinterParkVoiceEditor@gmail.com
To comment or read comments from others, click here →
by Beth Kassab | Dec 8, 2023 | City Commission, News, Zoning and Development
P&Z board approves new 300-bed Rollins dorm
The proposal to increase an existing dormitory from 80 to 300 beds comes as the college is also seeking approvals for a faculty and staff apartment building
Dec. 7, 2023
By Beth Kassab
The Planning & Zoning Board this week green-lighted a new student housing project on the Rollins College campus, which would increase the existing Holt Hall from 80 to 300 beds.
The project at 1000 Holt Avenue next to the Tennis Center was unanimously approved by the board and plans for the up to 6-story and 139,000-square-foot building are expected to come before the City Commission in January.
Sam Stark, Rollins’ vice president for communications, said the new dorm along with a proposed faculty and staff housing complex on New England Avenue are the latest ways the college is offering more students the opportunity to live on campus and more faculty the chance to live nearby.
Rollins is not growing, he said, noting that the number of undergraduates will remain at about 2,200 along with about 230 faculty and 500 staff.
“We’re not in a growth spurt,” he said. “Our real value proposition is student engagement with faculty and staff so the idea is to be able to have those faculty and staff closer so they can attend clubs and games.”
Stark said the college knows anecdotally that professors are driving to campus from everywhere from Winter Garden to Winter Springs and beyond. The median home price in Winter Park, where many neighborhoods and the campus are nestled on expensive lakefront property, are consistently higher than much of the rest of the region.
Rollins already offers faculty the opportunity to rent a small number of college-owned townhomes near Mead Botanical Gardens, but is looking to expand that program with 48 units just west of Central Park between New England and Welbourne.
A rendering shows a faculty and staff apartment project proposed by Rollins College.
A small number of graduate student units exist there now.
Rollins already owns the five parcels of land and does not pay property taxes on the highest-valued parcel at 273 W. New England where grad student housing stands now. Stark said he expected that the college would continue to be exempt from property taxes, including on the other four parcels that are currently vacant, once the new project is built. Nonprofit educational institutions are exempt from certain taxes when land is used to advance their educational mission.
The faculty housing project, which is expected to be rented at about market rate, is expected to go before the Planning & Zoning Board in January and then will go before the City Commission.
Stark said the hope is that both projects will take more cars off the roads since more faculty and students will be able to walk or ride bikes to class.
He said concerns that the faculty units would eventually be rented to students and essentially become a dorm that hops Fairbanks Avenue from the main campus are unfounded.
“That’s not happening,” he said. “There is no interest, no desire … it would remain as staff and faculty housing exclusively.”
WinterParkVoiceEditor@gmail.com
To comment or read comments from others, click here →
by Beth Kassab | Dec 1, 2023 | City Commission, News, Zoning and Development
Rollins seeking to build apartments for faculty west of Central Park
The three-story project proposed between New England and Welbourne avenues would provide affordable housing for people who work on the campus
Dec. 1, 2023
By Beth Kassab
Rollins College is asking the city for approvals for a three-story apartment project west of Central Park that will span more than 80,000-square-feet and hold 48 units.
Affordable housing is a challenge in Winter Park, where the median list price is $600,000 or more than $100,000 higher than the median for all of Orange County, according to Realtor.com.
“This project allows Rollins to attract and retain faculty and staff by providing quality, affordable housing close to campus,” Rollins spokeswoman Lauren Bradley said in a statement. “This workforce housing initiative is another way Rollins can stay competitive in recruiting talented individuals who educate and support our students.”
The request for changes to the city’s comprehensive plan will go before the Planning & Zoning board Jan. 9 and the City Commission on Jan. 24, according to a city notice.
Rollins already owns the land along Welbourne, New England and Virginia avenues. Some of the land is vacant, but an apartment building stands on one of the parcels.
WinterParkVoiceEditor@gmail.com
To comment or read comments from others, click here →
by Beth Kassab | Sep 22, 2023 | City Commission, News, Zoning and Development
McCraney Property wants to build headquarters on land city wanted for park
The property management company is under contract to buy land on Orange Avenue owned by Bank OZK
Sept. 22, 2023
By Beth Kassab
After city officials learned earlier this month that Bank OZK accepted another offer on two acres the city tried to buy to expand Seven Oaks Park, speculation swirled over the identity of the buyer.
This week representatives of McCraney Property Company reached out to city staff and said they plan to purchase the land and are proposing to build an office to serve as the company’s headquarters, a city spokeswoman confirmed.
The city has not yet received any documents related to the plans. A call to the offices of Steven McCraney, the company’s president and chief executive officer who also lives in Winter Park, was not returned.
McCraney Property has offices in Orlando, West Palm Beach and Charlotte, N.C., according to its website.
“Since its founding in 1989, the company has grown to be one of the most active developers of high-finish industrial real estate – e-commerce fulfillment and distribution facilities – and private acquisition in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina’s major markets,” the site states.
It’s unclear when the sale of the land will close or how soon the company is looking to start construction.
The city offered Bank OZK (formerly Bank of the Ozarks) about $6 million for the property on top of waiving impact fees on a site at mixed-use development Ravaudage, where the bank apparently now intends to build a branch.
The Winter Park Land Trust offered $500,000 in private funding to help the city purchase the land and convert it to park space. The above renderings show the site as it exists today compared to how it could have looked as greenspace.
Questions or comments? Email the editor at WinterParkVoiceEditor@gmail.com
To comment or read comments from others, click here →
by Beth Kassab | Sep 15, 2023 | City Commission, News, Zoning and Development
Vision dashed? Bank enters contract to sell land that city wanted for park
Commissioner Marty Sullivan urged the city to make another unsolicited offer to buy the property, but hopes for a deal dimmed
Sept. 15, 2023
By Beth Kassab
After a contentious public meeting over how — or even if — the city should acquire 2 acres on Orange Avenue to expand Seven Oaks Park, Friday brought what appeared to be a final blow to any last hopes for a deal: the broker the landowner Bank OZK said the property is under contract with another buyer.
City Manager Randy Knight let Commissioners know the news Friday afternoon, just one day after the city sent another unsolicited offer to the Arkansas-based bank previously known as Bank of the Ozarks to purchase the vacant property for about $6 million.
That offer was the result of a 3-2 vote on Wednesday night to, for a third time, attempt to purchase the property after the city learned on Monday that the bank accepted an offer from an unknown buyer. Mayor Phil Anderson and Commissioner Kris Cruzada voted against the offer.
Commissioner Marty Sullivan, who tried to insert money for the purchase in next year’s city budget, but withdrew that motion for lack of enough support. Sullivan said he wanted to call the vote to demonstrate to the bank that commissioners weren’t “dragging our feet” over the acquisition. In public meetings there was a lack of unanimous support to spend contingency funds or issue bonds to finance the purchase.
Sullivan said he supported the citizens who “took the long view” of what the property could mean decades from now: a more connected series of green spaces from Mead Botanical Gardens to the Winter Park Tennis Center to Seven Oaks, which is still under construction along Orange Avue.
For some in the city, including supporters of the private Winter Park Land Trust, which offered $500,000 toward the deal, the bank’s parcel represented a vision to maintain Winter Park’s small urban village charm and would have preserved a slice of increasingly scarce undeveloped land in a busy business corridor.
“I’d like to see Orange Avenue become more like Park Avenue rather than become more like U.S. Highway 17-92,” said Brad Blum, a member of the land trust and former chief executive officer of Olive Garden and Burger King, who attended the meeting.
But the practical implications of a more than $6 million purchase during a year with a number of competing priorities for a piece of the city’s $208 million budget were too difficult to overcome for Anderson and Cruzada.
“I’m not about to put up money when we don’t even know where it’s going to come from and burden residents,” Cruzada said.
Anderson said floating $4.5 million in bonds, the difference after taking about $1 million from the city’s parks acquisition fund and $500,000 from the Land Trust, made the most sense, but he said other priorities such as new fire stations and flood control improvements are more pressing needs.
“I’m just not feeling or hearing the grassroots support demanding that this is the best use for city funds,” he said.
Vice Mayor Sheila DeCiccio said she supported the idea of buying the property to preserve as greenspace, but no longer felt the bank was dealing with the city in good faith. For that reason, she did not support Sullivan’s motion on Wednesday to add the bank property to the city budget, which left Commissioner Todd Weaver as the only likely “yes” vote in addition to Sullivan. As a result, Sullivan withdrew that motion.
“This is the third time the bank has pulled the rug out from under the city,” she said. “They have not dealt with us in good faith and have played us to get another offer.”
The bank did not respond to a call for comment.
Questions or comments? Email the editor at WinterParkVoiceEditor@gmail.com
To comment or read comments from others, click here →
Recent Comments