leondecollao

I mean, it looks like a quad and follows the same aesthetic as the Memory mall at UCF. Memory mall has turned out to be a great meeting place for events, tailgating etc. I would suspect UCF and Valencia played an important part in the design process. I am pleased that at least the CV version of a quad seems to have a little more shade than the main campus version.

I’ve never heard the words amazing and Volusia County Council in the same sentence. Volusia and Daytona has been mis-managed and badly represented for decades. There has been a serious lack of talent running the show and it’s shown. The current council members are trying to get some semblance of growth going. If I were in that council, I would probably have to approve anything reasonable in front of me - Daytona needs it. That’s just reality imo. Being able to show some spine is a luxury Volusia doesn’t have.

This is a fascinating snippet of info. Seems about right to me - winter park includes lakemont to Semoran, east of Semoran, and west of Park - that brings down their average quite a bit. College Park, Baldwin and Thornton don’t have any areas lowering their averages. They do all seem a bit higher that I might expect though.

If you hit the right combination of good food / value for what you get / atmosphere / service you are pretty likely to have a long run. Can’t recall any failed restaurant that was even close to successful at hitting the right formula, imo. Revolving door, sure, but you can see the closings coming a mile away usually.

Idk i think most on here are also interested in development news even if it’s not technically urban. Plus, in the case of Daytona Beach, it’s tremendous news after decades of plight.

If you are a developer and try to build a mall in this retail climate, you need to check your sanity. All tourists I come across seem pretty impressed with our outlet malls. They can’t believe such discounts are even a thing. In Latin America you still mostly buy everything at full price.

In my opinion, absolutely yes. The demand is still clearly there with occupancies still at 95% or so. It doesn’t even matter what they charge, it all rents. With that said, one of these buildings will end up being one too many. Which? Who knows.

It’s also crazy nice for dorms. Can’t recall ever seen a swankier dorm building around.

Good for them but this is still an uphill battle for something like this to work. Speaking of senior living, this *might* work as a luxury CCRC high rise. There’s a bit of a rush to build those and there’s some iconic ones out west. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/high-rises-for-retirees-1467302125

Building up is a lot more expensive and land is still plentiful, especially at Creative Village. It wouldn’t make any sense.

Incredible how little fanfare there is to this sun rail expansion. Can’t blame them though, they are probably better off flying under the radar and sticking to low expectations.

Agreed. However, the Emirates direct flight to Dubai opens up Asia for MCO travelers. The expansion of foreign routes at MCO has been nothing short of remarkable. South America was mostly off limits save for Colombia and Brazil and now there are a ton of flights heading down there and the expansion to Europe has been happening as well. Just flew direct to Paris on Norwegian and not sure why that service would be classified as sub-par. It’s heck of a lot better than most US legacy carriers. Airlines like Latam, Avianca, and Norwegian have been aggressively expanding in MCO. All very good signs.

And importantly, it’s got the required hat.

Atlanta is seeing all the development because it’s the economic capital of the south. While some good points have been made, I’m still waiting for someone to explain how or why any of that development should come here instead.

Agree to disagree. I specifically mentioned midtown because it’s one of the worst parts in manhattan and most New Yorkers fully agree with that statement. Many parts of Manhattan are much more inviting and interesting like Tribeca, Chelsea, and Greenwich village. All with smaller buildings and better street interaction, may I add. Are the tall buildings to blame? I don’t know but defending midtown Manhattan is bizarre. That part of town is office building after office building and mostly dead after 5pm when compared to the rest of NYC. Not sure where to even start with your “taller is always better” or homeless comments. I’ll just say everyone has different opinions.

I don’t know. Tall buildings look good in pictures and when you drive by but they kill street activity and are very anti-people in my opinion. I will take our quaint downtown over midtown manhattan any day.

Again, why do we need tall buildings? (Waiting for all you guys to throw stuff at me lol) i just don’t get the obsession. I love the urban feel in Paris and there’s no super tall in sight.....

I thought of this conversation watching American idol last night. A girl auditioned and said she was from Winter Haven many times and then was immediately followed by a girl from McKinney, TX who kept saying she was from Dallas, outside of Dallas, close to Dallas. There is some truth that Orlando does not seem to have the same catchet. With that said, central Florida is part of our identity and will always be the case most likely, kinda like New England is with most folks around Boston.

Curious - what do you mean by going rogue? It is interesting that everyone on here appears to think all central Florida cities and counties should play nice and just let downtown Orlando get every project and investment. Like you described on your post, Seminole also fought hard for the Lake Mary developments (Deloitte, etc). it is great to see Osceola get some love, they could use more, not less.

Honestly, any criticism of the Orlando Ballet right now rings hollow and uninformed to me. They almost closed down a couple years ago. It’s been an almost miraculous turn around and there’s been wholesale changes in leadership. For the first time in forever, the future of the ballet seems secure.

Seems silly to compare Tampa and Orlando. Tampa is a bigger city in every sense of the word. With that said, trends are in Orlando’s favor and we should have a strong shot to catch up in a couple decades.

The conversation on retail is kinda intriguing to me, perhaps we need a specific thread for that (unless we already do) The point I wanted to make on retail - retail downtown is probably unlikely to ever happen at any sort of scale. Retail is in HUGE trouble and the large retailers that remain are largely in huge debt and face declining numbers every year. I’m sure we will get some retail as our downtown population grows but anyone waiting for a return of the 90s is likely to be pretty disappointed. I think the conversation needs to evolve to what a downtown should focus on if retail is unlikely to work going forward.

The marketing associated with it does only apply to banks in most cases - the banks are marketing to everyone in the community and have a real need to make their presence known. Most other big tenants downtown have no need to market to the community and are very niche in who they need to market to (law firms, accounting firms, etc).

I get what you’re saying but there isn’t much to save in Daytona. I too grew up in DB and totally giddy the city is finally starting to see some development

They haven’t built a garage because it’s not necessary and it would be a waste of money.