Last week during a City Commission Planning and Zoning Board work session, Mayor Phil Anderson revealed plans from an undisclosed developer interested in building new apartments, commercial buildings, park space, and a parking garage in Winter Park. After receiving redevelopment plans, the City discussed the next steps for an urban-designed, mixed-use community proposed for nearly 13 acres of land adjacent to I-4, south of West Fairbanks Avenue.
The property, which is currently under contract with the developer, would fall under Winter Park, Orlando, and Orange County jurisdictions. According to the City’s agenda, the West Fairbanks corridor consists primarily of single-family homes in Orange County that the City has “anticipated the redevelop for many years based on development and real estate trends in the surrounding areas” for over a decade.
Redevelopment plans of the property would require the City to consider annexing about 10 acres of land and updating its development codes. According to a recent GrowthSpotter article, the property is currently owned by at least a dozen different entities tied to Jim Veigle and his family, whose investment in the land started back in the 1980s.
The annexation of properties out of Winter Park, only to return with development entitlements from elsewhere, is nothing new for the City. Just a few years ago, developer Dan Bellows with Sydgan Corporation enacted a similar process with Winter Park’s Ravadauge development located on the Maitland-Winter Park border. During the work session, City of Winter Park board members unanimously agreed to annex the land, and Principal Planner Jeffery Briggs spoke about the “ripe” property.
“We always felt that annexation into Winter Park was a priority for all of these 10 acres,” Briggs said. “We want to be able to control the quality of the development because it’s going to be on the doorstep of our gateway into the city, and frankly, we also want to receive the tax base from the development because we’re going to get the traffic and all the other spinoffs, so we might as well be able to provide a revenue for services in that area.”
For more information, watch the work session.