alex

Those were just a few new views that weren't fully rendered. Based on this new marketing video, everything should still be there: https://player.vimeo.com/video/229553401

I think it's unpainted concrete, but it looks a little darker in that photo than it does in real life. Not sure if wrecks are common, but I take that intersection home every day and "almost wrecks" and "kamikaze pedestrians" are pretty common.

I'm still holding out hope that the Racetrac is just a joke... But for the sake of discussion, these two lots are zoned MU-2, which is defined as: At a combined area of 1.63 acres, this lot could accommodate: Either 122 residential units (203 units if a bonus is granted) Or 71,002 sq ft of office/commercial space (142,000 sq ft if a bonus is granted) Or a combination of units and sq ft within those limits If this City actually cared about its development goals, we should be getting something like: 4400 Manchester | St. Louis, MO | 0.4 acre site - 5 stories - 55 apartment units - 4,000 sq ft retail - 58 parking spaces Highland Residences | Los Angeles, CA | 0.7 acre site - 6 stories - 76 apartment units - 2,500 sq ft retail - 143 parking spaces The Grove | St. Louis, MO | 0.4 acre site - 3 stories - 20 apartment units - 1,400 sq ft retail - 20 parking spaces The Cricket | Ardmore, PA - 5 stories - 77 apartment units - 12,000 sq ft retail - 105 parking spaces

This x 1000. Any livable city needs a good amount of basic urban infill projects.

Is this for real or just a tasteless joke?

Wow, real community focused...

Saw some tree trimming trucks leaving the 520 site this morning...

Ha, apparently.

Looks like they included some new (to me at least) renderings:

It looks like they updated the sales site with a new rendering. Must be a very recent rendering since it shows a finished Citi Tower in the back. Could be interesting...

Capital Plaza III—planned for the parking lot just beyond the church—comes up now and then. I don't think anything is known for sure. Edit: Just check the sales site and there's a new rendering up. Added it to the Capital Plaza III thread.

Looks like it's next to the Lake Lucerne development: "Orlando Health is planning the second phase for its new downtown office building near the Orlando Regional Medical Center campus...Orlando Health is seeking to update the existing plans for the 4.88-acre site at 55 W. Gore St., according to documents filed with the city of Orlando on Feb. 20...Phase 2 entails replacing more of the surface parking with an office building of up to 60,000 square feet, as well as an additional 305 parking spaces in the garage." This could help turn Gore into quite the urban corridor...hopefully with some street improvements like mid-block pedestrian crossings.

Maybe it's the angle, but it already looks sleeker and less stumpy.

Thanks, @aent, for your thorough response. Not being a business owner and not having worked in the tourist sector, I appreciate your perspective. In terms of a minimum wage increase, I could post a slew or articles pointing out the pros or countries where it's working well—but, like you said, you could probably find plenty of data highlighting the cons, so I'll leave it at that. I will say, however, that as cool as the perks of working at Disney sound, I imagine it's pretty hard to pay for college or save for retirement using guest passes. At the end of the day, all these companies' profits are going somewhere while a big portion of workers is struggling. -------------- Going back to the earlier topic of affordable housing, the latest Central Florida 100 had some harsh things to say about how Tallahassee is handling Florida's affordable housing fund: "End money grab that crimps affordable housing".

That photo's actually from the account of Orlando-based photographer Steve Madow, in case you want to give him a follow: https://www.instagram.com/stevenmadow/ (Or just look at his other cool shots of Orlando.)

Ah, thanks for clarifying the visa thing. In general, I'm just saying that we need to 1) build an environment that supports low-income people, 2) attract higher-paying jobs, and 3) offer opportunities for upward mobility. I think points 2 and 3 are being addressed by Creative Village, new K-8 schools, Lake Nona, and other programs—I just don't see any earnest efforts for point 1.

That's...quite a visual. Low unemployment is great, but I can't help but mention one more time: Minimum wage just rose to $8.25/hr this year, which is still short of the $11-15/hr that's actually needed to live in Central Florida. Somebody working 40 hours/week at minimum wage makes $17,160 a year. Meanwhile, Disney parks made $4.56 billion in revenue in Q4 of 2017, up 6%; Universal parks made $1.5 billion in revenue in Q4 2017, up 10%. At the same time, we're supposed to forget that Disney laid off 250 higher-earning tech workers in 2015 to replace them with cheaper H-1B visa workers? Our area's major tourism employers are exploiting us, and our elected officials won't protect us because they're too concerned about visitors numbers and funneling taxes into the Convention Center. The tourism industry is booming (physically and financially), but the on-the-ground people doing the work are completely left out of the profits.

If we're going to be OK with having an economic backbone that consists of minimum-wage jobs (which in reality means they are making less than half of a living wage) then we need to cater to those people. By that I mean we need to have 1) robust affordable housing programs and 2) efficient public transportation. We have the advantage of cheap, plentiful land and concentrated, single-site employers—perfect conditions for transit-oriented workforce housing. However, our development regulations and infrastructure funding priorities favor $1,400-per-month one-bedroom apartments and car-dependency. Basically, we're expecting people making $20,000 a year to pay $20,000 a year in rent and car-related expenses. Our environment is not set up in a way that encourages the next generation to qualify as high-skilled employees that start or attract new companies. In a roundabout way I have to agree with I am Reality that what we're doing right now is not how you get an educated workforce, attract HQs, and get notable buildings. As much as I'm an Orlando-cheerleader like the rest of you, we really need to hold politicians, developers, and other community leaders to higher standards. While I don't want to negate our city's recent achievements, you have to admit a lot of grand plans either never left the drawing board or materialized as cobbled-together stop-gaps that never get improved upon (case in point: SunRail).

Yeah, but I don't want Orange County sprawl ruining the City of Orlando's and the City of Winter Park's decent walkscores... ;-)

Purely speculative, but looking at the proposer's website, they have some decently urban projects: Here are their current Florida hotels.

That 55 West tho...

Was looking at some real estate listings and found these recent aerial shots of downtown. The density in South Eola is looking good—but I was most surprised by how built-up Orlando Health/SoDo is looking thanks to the Novel Lucerne development. South Eola: Looking north along Rosalind: Dr. Phillips Center and Central Business District: Orlando Health, Lake Lucerne, and the new 408/I-4 interchange:

Not the best photos ever, but here are two shots of what I mentioned earlier. Mystery (environmental remediation?) pipes at the old Chevron/Kobe site: Bento HQ site as seen from Bikkuri Sushi:

The way I understood it is that Florida East Coast Industries owns the All Aboard brand which is building the Brightline-branded train. So technically "All Aboard" still exists...?

Same. Someone I know who once worked as a subcontractor to All Aboard told me years ago that they'd already registered "All Aboard ______" for every state and had [what sounded like serious] plans in the works for using/upgrading lines north of Orlando into other states. This has since been echoed by multiple articles as recent as last month talking about expansion to Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas. I would say the company has a pretty good track record so far: they've completed the West Palm and Ft. Lauderdale stations, have service running between them, have tenants moving into portions of the Miami Central station while the main buildings are well under construction, and have a reserved spot at the Orlando intermodal station. Despite the delays, I'm pretty impressed and optimistic. (Still bitter that they didn't take over Lynx Central Station and the empty lots in downtown Orlando, but that's a separate discussion...)