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City of Oviedo |
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While Oviedo might be one of Central
Florida’s oldest communities, first settled
some 140 years ago, this Seminole County boomtown
knows how to embrace newcomers.
Indeed, few Central Florida municipalities have
witnessed the kind of growth Oviedo has seen in
recent years. The town’s population is closing
in on 30,000-more than a tenfold increase since
1980.
Oviedo’s growth was a long
time coming. The area’s first settlers, who
put down stakes near Lake Jesup in the 1 860s, called
it Solary’s Wharf. In 1883 postmaster Andrew
Aulin dubbed it Oviedo, supposedly after seeing
a Spanish town of the same name on a map.
Longtime locals point to 1964 as perhaps the most
significant year in Oviedo’s history. That’s
when a desolate 1,145-acre tract in rural northeast
Orange County, about seven miles east of the city,
was selected as the site for Florida Technological
University (now the University of Central Florida).
Initially, the carpetbagging Ph.D.s
and the wary farmers made an unlikely combination.
But they were united by their desire to maintain
Oviedo’s small-town ambiance and to cling
to its agricultural heritage.
Indeed, the biggest worry among many longtime residents
these days is that Oviedo’s sleepy old downtown
might go the way of the long-vanished orange groves
and celery fields. Oviedo on the Park, a.k.a. “the
new downtown,” is planned for what’s
now a tangerine grove just north of Mitchell Hammock
Road. The 50-acre project, developed by Broad Street
Partners, would encompass 1,200 residential units
as well as a park, a lake, an amphitheater and 100,000
square feet of retail and restaurant space.
But even if the old downtown doesn’t survive,
the city won’t lack for historic places. Indeed,
the Oviedo Historical Trail lists no fewer than
85 significant sites, including the home of pioneer
postmaster George Browne, built in 1885, and the
James Wilson House, built in 1938 on Lake Charm
Circle.
Another big draw for relocators is the Oviedo area’s
public schools, most of which received A’s
when the state Department of Education handed out
this year’s grades.
Nearby, unincorporated Chuluota
is experiencing a transformation from rural enclave
to booming suburb. Two new subdivisions, Osprey
Lakes and The Trails, have doubled the town’s
population, and it’s expected that several
hundred acres at the Seminole-Orange county line
will be developed as well. In fact, the once - isolated
town is projected to grow 48 percent by 2016.
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