leondecollao

Strongly disagree. People from all over metro Orlando have no issue driving to Disney Springs, restaurant row, I-drive, Mills 50, etc. For some of the brands mentioned, friends of mine regularly drive 30 minutes or so to places like susuru, Tori Tori, yellow dog eats, Domu, etc. I know people from NYC that will make sure to stop at Seito in Baldwin Park when they are here on conferences because of the quality of the place. Many of those same people trek out to Park Ave. and most of them end up at Prato. The brands and reputations do matter. We also have large minority groups in town that drive long distances regularly for the right restaurants....Asians to Colonial, Puerto Ricans down to Kissimmee. Orlando is so spread out, people regularly drive huge distances to go literally anywhere. Downtown Sanford is booming because people have proven they are very willing to drive to dining destinations. Heck, some people fly to places like NYC and Austin just to go on “foodie adventures”. Dining and drinking destinations are now considered tourist destinations in a lot of places. We all criticized Disney for turning Downtown Disney into a dining destination but they were clearly proven right. I do agree on parking and the general inconvenience of downtown. That’s still a major challenge.

Agreed, very strong get. Project would be well on its way to sustainable success imo if it gets support from our local Asian restaurants and chains - Hawker’s, Bento’s, vietnomz, Sus-hi, Seito’s, Kobe.....we’ve quietly built a pretty nice niche of strong Asian concepts in town.

?? There’s a ton of construction going on in the city and central Florida.

The building boom is certainly over. Lenders are essentially frozen and people will wait for some level of certainty before they invest in any new projects.

With the economy tanking as we speak, value engineering might be the only way this actually happens. All projects that haven’t yet started are now at risk of never happening, imo.

Reminds me of what just happened to all the new grocers that jumped into the market all at once. Besides these large gyms, a lot of boutique fitness and yoga places have popped up all over the place. It’s gonna get ugly for some of them, unfortunately. I’d assume half of them will fail within the next year or two.

This guy too!

After years on this board and not having lived through the process of getting the plaza built, I had always taken it for granted that the buildings that were demolished must have been of some tremendous historical significance but after seeing these pics......that’s what some of you guys are upset about? I don’t get it. There are buildings close to identical to those standing in downtown today and no one would be upset to see those go either....

You are going to have a really hard time finding anyone willing to save whatever it is that made Daytona Daytona. And I grew up there.

Same thing happened to Memphis. That airport is a now a ghost town and has affected the local economy quite a bit. Go back a bit more and the same thing has happened to many cities Like St. Louis (old TWA hub) and Kansas City. IMO, we clearly benefit from not being a hub city. More competition, better prices, and we don’t have all our eggs in one basket.

So this makes 5 starbucks (if you want to count Target and Barnes and Nobles) within a mile of each other on Colonial but you have to drive all the way up to winter park village to find one on Mills. Something doesn’t compute.

Bungalower posted a video tour of the project on facebook yesterday.....and what an impressive project it is. Won’t be cheap, we know, but this is premium all the way with a tremendous location, tremendous views and we’ll finally get that food hall we’ve wanted. I was hugely skeptical when such a large project was first proposed for the lot but this one’s a winner.

Idk, makes plenty sense to me. Using the Colonial Target as an example, It was bonkers that particular Target carried pet and cleaning supplies in the most trafficked part of the store. They have logically moved low margin, low volume product to the corners and things that have more sizzle close to the entrances. In the case of the Colonial store, that means trendy makeup and “self-care” products from the likes of Harry’s as one example. Very millennial but it also made plain business sense.

There’s still a lack of hotel rooms in this city away from the tourist corridor. I suspect a hotel in this location would do very well.

I’ve noticed a bunch of work being done last couple of weeks at the site that was supposed to be an orchard supply. Wonder what’s going on....

They are not booking anymore events at the venue after November 3rd so while not official, seems like steps are being made to start on tower 2

Exactly. Imagine the same article written about a road project.

I agree that association fees can get pretty high with condos, especially in downtown areas but I am always amazed by people not realizing you basically have the same costs owing a home - they are just lumpy and not predictable.

The population of Daytona proper is pretty misleading. Daytona is much larger than it seems - the population of the city including port orange, Ormond, holly hill, etc is close to 350,000 these days. Keep in mind Daytona can’t grow north, south or east due to the boundaries with other cities and the sea. The past few years, the most robust population growth has been in Port orange which now sits at about 63k.

Ponte Health is hosting a Healthcare symposium in Lake Nona today so they are clearly doing “stuff”. At least they seem dedicated.

This is what I have been thinking the whole time reading this discussion. Automated cars will soon start to change the whole dynamic. They are coming and coming fast. Rail might not make that much sense long term. Automated cars have the potential to fix our sprawl and transportation issues and they will not need dedicated lanes or any major infrastructure above and beyond what we currently have.

It is disappointing but these are the only viable options now. The trains are catering to tourists and how many of them will want to take a train to downtown Orlando? I am more interested in seeing this train succeed. Anything that increases the viability of rail long-term in this state is a huge win.

The growth of Frontier, Southwest, and Spirit is definitely a huge positive factor for MCO. Just a few years back it appeared we would never justify hub status but all the Latin America flights for the low cost airlines are changing that equation and fast. Spirit and Frontier seem determined to be our #1.

Why not?