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Altamonte Springs:
Altamonte Mall |
Palm Springs Drive |
Uptown Altamonte |
Crane's Roost Park |
Emerson Plaza |
Although Altamonte Springs was
incorporated in 1920, its population totaled only
5,000 as recently as 1970. But that was before developers
turned this erstwhile whistle stop into a thriving
suburb.
Today, Altamonte Springs, population
42,000+, is known primarily for the Altamonte Mall,
built in 1974 as the area’s first regional
mall, and for the presence of virtually every chain
eatery in the world.
Many of the city’s subdivisions
can be found along Palm Springs Drive, Maitland
Avenue and Montgomery Road, not far from the mall.
Some of the older developments are nestled around
hidden lakes that seem far removed from the hustle
and bustle.
Multifamily housing also is plentiful, with no fewer
than 30 apartment developments located within the
city limits, primarily along Semoran Boulevard,
also known as S.R. 436. Apartment living, plus the
convenience of shopping and entertainment venues,
has made Altamonte Springs popular among young adults.
But because no city wants its identity
tied entirely to a mall, local officials are focusing
on a 25-acre project called Uptown Altamonte, which
would shift the focus toward adjacent Crane’s
Roost Park and its 40-acre man-made lake.
Uptown Altamonte, a $250 million
partnership between the city’s Community Redevelopment
Agency and Unicorp National Developments, will encompass
more than 550 multifamily residential units, 255,000
square feet of retail and restaurant space, 150,000
square feet of office space, a park and an amphitheater
on Crane’s Roost Lake.
Also overlooking Crane’s
Roost Lake is Emerson Plaza, a condominium tower
where units have sold so well that developer Emerson
International has started construction on a second
tower. Another condominium tower, Park Towers, has
been delayed until the residential market picks
up.
Casselberry:
Founded by World War I veteran
Hibbard Casselberry, who in 1926 bought 3,000 acres
to grow ferns, Casselberry emerged as a suburban
residential community after World War II.
By the time it was incorporated
in 1965, Casselberry encompassed a number of family-oriented
subdivisions and a budding business district near
the intersection of S.R. 436 and U.S. 17-92.
In the decades that followed, the
city continued to grow – the population today
stands at more than 22,000 – but it became
almost indistinguishable from surrounding unincorporated
areas.
The quintessential bedroom community
plans on reclaiming its distinctive identity with
a 16-acre town center along U.S. 17-92 near City
Hall. Details are currently in the planning stages
with Quorum Development.
Other improvements are continuing,
however. A park just north of City Hall is being
revamped and expanded to include an amphitheater
on Lake Concord. The new and improved facility will
host the city’s biannual jazz fest as well
as a chili cook-off, art shows and other special
events.
The old Seminole Greyhound Park
property off Seminola Boulevard is also being redeveloped
as Legacy Park, which contains single-family homes
and townhomes as well as commercial and retail space.
Centex Homes is the primary builder.
Casselberry has 15 parks, more
than two dozen lakes and a municipal golf course
within its city limits.
Adjacent to Casselberry is unincorporated
Fern Park, which, as the name suggests, also traces
its beginnings to the fern-growing industry. Like
Casselberry, it developed into a bedroom community
for Orlando starting in the 1950s.
Lake Mary:
City of Lake Mary |
AAA Building in Lake Mary |
Heathrow |
Colonial Town Park |
Alaqua |
Lake Mary is one of Central Florida’s
hottest growth areas, thanks in part to the dogged
persistence of Jeno Paulucci, a blustery self-made
millionaire who made his first fortune selling frozen
Chinese food and a second one selling frozen pizza.
The city today sits at the epicenter
of Florida’s High-Tech Corridor, which follows
I-4 from Tampa through Seminole County and northeast
to Daytona Beach and Melbourne. Along the route,
government and industry have joined forces to attract
leading-edge companies in such fields as telecommunications,
medical technology and microelectronics.
In Lake Mary, population 14,000,
dozens of such companies have set up shop in several
sprawling business centers that have combined to
create a Central Florida version of Silicon Valley.
But it all started as an isolated
railroad station known as Bents, the surname of
a local grove owner. In 1900, industry arrived in
Bents when Planters Manufacturing Company built
a factory to produce starches, dextrins, farina
and tapioca.
The facility closed in 1910, however,
and Bents – later renamed Lake Mary, for the
wife of a local pastor – seemed destined to
remain and out-of-the-way country town.
That was the case for another half-century,
until the construction of I-4 and a successful campaign
by community boosters to get a Lake Mary interchange
tacked onto the project.
The resulting tracts of easily
accessible land caught the eye of Paulucci, founder
of Chun King. In the late 1970s he announced plans
to build a luxurious residential development and
business hub called Heathrow.
Few thought the audacious Paulucci
would be successful, and the project floundered
at first. But then the plainspoken old salesman
quieted naysayers by persuading the American Automobile
Association to relocate from suburban Washington
D.C., to his Heathrow Business Center.
The AAA coup, at the time Central
Florida’s most important corporate relocation
in decades, jump-started Heathrow and opened the
door for all the business and residential development
that followed.
Lake Mary officials are using a
$100,000 federal grant to advance plans to redevelop
the old downtown area to better reflect the city’s
prosperous image. And there are an array of new
projects, such as Colonial Town Park, a 175-acre
mixed-use development featuring shops, restaurants,
movie theaters and apartments in a village setting.
Longwood:
City of Longwood |
Wekiva Country Club |
Longwood Historic District |
Wekiva Springs State Park |
Big Tree State Park |
Of all Seminole County’s
municipalities, Longwood, population 13,700, has
the most history to preserve, and has done the best
job of preserving it. But it’s still a modern
place, with a plethora of exclusive country club
communities, office parks and shopping centers.
In 1873 a New Englander named Edward
Henck homesteaded a tract of land that he named
Longwood, after a Boston suburb he had helped plan.
Henck was also the town’s first postmaster
and its first mayor. And in what may have been his
spare time, Henck co-founded the South Florida Railroad
and built a llne connecting Sanford and Orlando,
which enabled Longwood to boom as a citrus- and
lumber-shipping center as well as a winter resort
destination.
But as crucial as Henck was to
Longwood’s development, it was a carpenter
named Josiah Clouser, a Henck employee, whose legacy
is most visible. Clouser, a Pennsylvanian, constructed
most of the buildings still standing in Longwood’s
remarkable historic district, a two—block
area on Warren and Church avenues near the intersection
of C.R. 427 and S.R. 434.
Popular annual events include the
Longwood Arts and Crafts Festival, held the weekend
before Thanksgiving, and the Founders Day Spring
Arts and Crafts Festival, held in March.
On the outskirts of the city; toward
neighboring Apopka in Orange County is Wekiva Springs
State Park. And on General Hutchinson Avenue is
Big Tree State Park, home of “The Senator,”
said to be the oldest and largest cypress tree in
the state.
Oviedo:
City of Oviedo |
UCF |
Lake Jesup |
Lake Charm Circle |
Oviedo Marketplace
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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.
Sanford:
City of Sanford |
Lake Monroe |
Downtown Sanford |
Orlando-Sanford Airport |
Helen Stairs Theater
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Located on the shores of Lake Monroe,
Sanford once rivaled Orlando as the region’s
largest city. A major distribution center for vegetables
and citrus, it was known as “The Celery Capital
of the World.”
But agriculture is no longer king
in Sanford, population 38,000+. Today it’s
the Seminole County seat, making county government
the leading employer.
And, after years of stagnation, Sanford is also
a city on the rise, thanks to a burgeoning airport—one
of the fastest-growing in the country—and
a downtown redevelopment project.
Today, Sanford is enjoying a resurgence
that is in part tied to increased air travel at
the Orlando—Sanford International Airport.
The facility, located on Sanford’s east side,
has a two—story international terminal, a
separate domestic terminal, a U.S. Customs Office
and three paved runways. As the facility grows,
it’s expected to create some 21,000 new jobs
over the next 15 years.
In historic downtown Sanford, work
is complete on the $11 million Sanford Riverwalk,
which includes sidewalks and bike trails along Lake
Monroe between Mellonville and French avenues. Several
large condominium towers have also been proposed.
One of the most important downtown attractions is
the Helen Stairs Theater, a renovated movie house
that hosts theatrical productions and live concerts.
And work has recently finished
on a streetscape project to enhance First Street,
downtown’s main drag, between Oak and Sanford
avenues. Under the $2.2 million project, the original
brick beneath the asphalt was restored, sidewalks
were widened and parking spaces changed from angled
to parallel.
Relocators to Sanford can choose from an array of
new subdivisions on the city’s outskirts,
or they can latch on to Victorian fixer-uppers in
the rapidly gentrifying city center.
Winter Springs:
Black Hammock |
Tuscawilla |
Winter Springs TownCenter |
Winter Springs High School |
C21 Winter Springs Office |
Until the mid-1950s, Winter Springs
was nothing more than several square miles of scrub
pine and palmettos. That’s when developers
Raymond Moss and William Edgemon bought the land,
subdivided it and introduced the Village of North
Orlando.
At the start of the 1970’s,
a time of rampant growth throughout Central Florida,
the area contained one small grocery store and roughly
300 homes straddling State Road 434.
Tuscawilla, eastern Seminole County’s
first upscale golf course community, changed all
that. Also, a new city charter was adopted in 1972,
changing the city’s name to Winter Springs.
Today, the city’s growth
rivals that of adjacent Oviedo. In the past two
decades, population has increased 800 percent, to
more than 31,600. And more growth is on the way,
through both residential and commercial development.
Officials are now eyeing more of
the so-called Black Hammock, a marshy wilderness
north of the city, where scattered homes are set
on three- to five-acre lots. Over the years, the
city has annexed several Black Hammock parcels and
rezoned them to allow new subdivisions, much to
the chagrin of many Black Hammock residents.
In any case, Winter Springs is
moving ahead on other fronts. For example, a South
Carolina-based developer has completed Phase I of
a 240-acre Town Center at the corner of State Road
434 and Tuskawilla Road. The complex will ultimately
encompass 2,400 multifamily residential units, 99
single-family homes, 591,000 square feet of retail
space and 573,000 square feet of office space along
with apartments, parks and public buildings.
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