dwSouthEola

City says no, it's a separate movie series completely unrelated. They don't do Movieola during late spring/summer bc there's so much rain. Movieola will be back in the fall : )

This is where I think our neighborhood really lands in the middle for most people. Close but far enough away from Orange Ave to avoid most of the nonsense.

So no more Jan? I never thought he'd give up his grip on that place. No wonder the building looks amazing and big acts are coming through, it's about time.

Cool, not my experience. For me it's like hearing people on TV establishing that they are going to a business on Memorial Drive, then later saying Mem Drive as if it's local slang. Nope.

First, I don't mind the DTO ... they're trying ? That said, I have always loved the information center. After meetings at city hall I wander over there and pick up info from the magazine stands they have, and they've really put a lot of effort into the new shop. Personally knowing people who have their products there for sale, t's a great way for locals and visitors to support the local artist/maker community - and they're always running promos for % off, like today's Flash Sale is 50% until 1pm. I lived in Boston for 15yrs, had 2 jobs, worked for the state gov't, always out & about meeting people - while I def get that's what DTX stands for, I have never met anyone who uses that. It's like calling the city Beantown, or the Ted Williams Tunnel the TWT, it just doesn't happen. I have many a txt message where I've shortened it to dwntwnxing but that's about it. The same will prob go for DTO, it makes sense and that's fine, but doesn't seem like it will be widely used. Kinda like 'Turn Up Downtown' you have to figure if these are the ones they picked, the whiteboard after their brainstorming session must have been just terrible.

So this is true, but again (from what we are told) not a dog park open to the general public. In a recent review of likely short/long term land development in the neighborhood, city planning told us that the owners offered to sell the cleared lot at Osceola & Pine to Paramount so their residents could have their own attached dog park. It appears they declined such an offer. Seems a little ridic whoever owns it cleared an income generating property for a 'maybe' and now it sits empty.

If this is a Muddy Waters reference I might havta start calling our neighborhood South Eoka

This reminded me that I've been meaning to request her books from the library after seeing a lot of her articles at the Orange County Regional History Center. Thx!

I can only assume this is sarcasm/mocking the issue that residents of South Eola believe they live in Thornton Park and that we're out to 'correct them' - the lie being sold to these people (TPD, realtors, developers are making money off this lie) has actual consequences. South Eola has tried year after year to jumpstart a Neighborhood Watch program. If people think "Oh well, I live in Thornton Park" then who's joining? When a man physically attacked diners outside Oudom in 2019, that same man had caused a disturbance on Anthony's patio earlier in the day. In 2017, 2018, maybe even 2019, had we been able to reach residents the same way other neighborhoods are - we could've had a strong effective NW program in place and using 'see something say something' possibly had a BOLO alert sent out, put it on our Facebook page, in our FB group, block captains can send txt alerts, etc. Eola Heights is really great about this, it is attainable. So then you have to also ask, with anything that could've happened that day to get word out - would anyone even listen? If they think Oudom is in Thornton Park, if they think they live in Thornton Park, would they care that someone was rampaging across South Eola? We deal with real issues here, we're not party planners. I think, like most people, you're confusing the TPD and the Thornton Park neighborhood. TPD is a business, basically an ad agency with a 'coverage map' and contract voted on by city council. Without other businesses who choose to pay them for their promotional services, it would cease to exist. Neighborhoods are the places where people live. Verizon has a coverage map too but I don't go around telling people "I live in Verizon" because I pay them for their services - even if they threw a party at Lake Eola. And all you have to do is look at the map, South Eola already makes up nearly the entire TPD so they have already "annexed" their way into that. If you're talking about the neighborhood absorbing South Eola they said no. They're a small, sleepy neighborhood they don't want the issues that come with over 2,000 residents in an urban setting. Did you think we had never asked? Who do you see resisting the tide of change? South Eola is the new downtown, Thornton Park is clinging to relevance on our back. If it weren't for the TPD using South Eola for the sake of Thornton Park's name and brand, what would they have? Their homes, Burtons, and hair salons. The "Thornton Park Historic District" is another lie, they're part of the Lawsona Historic District. It's extremely narcissistic, and sad in a way.. why not be proud of who you are vs touting what others have as your own. Idk I'm glad we agree here, although I do have another map. Updated for 2021 it shows all the current residential buildings in our neighborhood, and the lake. So you think South Eola and every one of these buildings using Lake Eola as a selling point is weak advertising? If Lake Eola were located in any other neighborhood, trust me they'd be selling it. To sweeten the deal we can also add things like South Eola is the #1 most walkable neighborhood in downtown Orlando, has the only grocery store downtown, the only off leash dog park, even though it's not in our name we've actually got two parks: Lake Eola & Constitution Green, multiple stops for free Lymmo transportation connecting you with the larger downtown Orlando area, we have a boutique hotel and brewery, locally owned small businesses not found anywhere else, and any level of buy-in of residence you could want from $1000 rentals to over $2M condos. This is already a lot and I'm sure nobody wants wicked long blocks of text and quote after quote of each other being addressed so if you want to talk more, anytime - I'm at [email protected] Happy Friday!

This happened at a TPD mixer hosted by the Abbey, they set us up next to the Thornton Park neighborhood association table and a woman wanted to join the TP neighborhood association - they told her she didn't live in TP and she got visibly upset, started shouting 'I live upstairs in the Sanctuary and I most certainly DO live in TP" it was a full meltdown. They tried to send her our way and she was not having it.. oh well. To bring it back to the 520 at least they are using the fact that South Eola has Lake Eola Park to rent their apartments, still going out of their way not to mention South Eola by name but - baby steps. It seems weird Acre felt the need to use the lie/crutch to rent their retail space.

Oof, when I lived at the Plaza Apts and walked my dog at night I remember the cars cruising the block by Baptist Terrace.. and I get brand recognition, but that was the 90s and downtown has obvi changed so much. Parking for the Plaza used to be a grass lot across the street. Lol. There was nothing here. It just feels to me rather than the city cling to a dead brand, or appropriating South Eola for the sake of said brand - why not create something new? I mean tbh it's already been created, just start using the name, package and sell it. 90% of real estate listings here call SE "the heart of TP" so shouldn't TP also be kind of upset with this? They don't care that their brand is so watered down? Besides that the 2 neighborhoods couldn't be more different. And there's def a pact going on across this town to NEVER say 'South Eola' out loud. We're either Downtown, Thornton Park, someone at the planning dept uses Eola South (?) idk and South Eola District, which if you look at the map kind of already exists just with an intentionally misleading name.

Well they're both in South Eola so it's pretty stupid either way. When they changed the name we reached out and asked why they chose that and got a stock response "it's meant to reference the Thornton Park District" but the name isn't CamdenTPD so ... ? Off the record the woman told me she disagreed with the name but the company was influenced by the city to choose CamdenTP. When we asked the city about this they said "we'll look into that" and they must still be looking. The fact that the new building hasn't hitched their wagon to that concept may be shining more of a light on the lie next door bc for the first time I've ever seen CamdenTP recently posted about being in South Eola...albeit in a way that was also wrong. They're trying, it's still laughable. All I could think of was this reddit meme format when I saw the post. Or maybe they've found a secret way to exist in both the Thornton Park / South Eola neighborhood? Two places at once, that's impressive.

The bldg looks amazing now that it's done. There's a buzz in the neighborhood and the lights on at night make it feel like the building has come to life, not just a vacant box.. but really, are we still doing this? Smh How is this "THORNTON PARK'S NEWEST LUXURY APARTMENT COMPLEX" (that's their ALL CAPS not mine...they're really excited about it). We reached out to Acre to share https://www.southeola.org/history in an effort to show them South Eola is actually a great place, something to be proud of as a location, and asked that they change their wording to be correct/accurate "South Eola's newest luxury apartment complex" but everyone loves selling this lie so it still stands: https://www.acrefl.com/camden-lake-eola That they go on to say located in both Thornton Park District and South Eola District (which we've been told isn't a thing) is just weird. Idk why I was surprised (-ish, not really) to see that Thornton Park picked up another luxury complex via South Eola - they have all the things.

I think they had a good 80s night on some off night when Barbarella wasn't open. Thurs maybe? The 80s/alternative crowd is usually a good mix.. I wouldn't say breeders. I mean, I was there. But only on Thursday. Hahaha

I prob don't want to think about exactly *how long ago* it really is at this point but before whatever remodel this is, I remember the creepy Mac Tonight animatronic they had upstairs would come to life and play piano. Was back before every McD's was 24hrs, I think we stopped here on our way home from Pleasure Island a few times. I realize I'm also dating myself w that PI reference.. oof.

We asked about the western corners (especially after the Land Trust gained traction with their hopeful acquisition at Central/Rosalind) and how the tax collector puts those buildings in South Eola but the GIS map doesn't. The city basically said the corners were not included bc they're zoned for business and felt inclusion in the CBD was more appropriate. As for the map not including down to Lake Ave & the Waverly, I can only assume (which you should never do) that the area was defined before the Waverly was built in the 90s. I remember living at Post Parkside when they built Waverly and there wasn't a lot around, so it makes sense that area had similarly been seen as commercial property in the past. That said, in 2016 we were directed by the city to accept Waverly residents (even Metropolitan residents) if they wanted to join our newly established organization, because the CBD doesn't have (or didn't at the time) an established neighborhood association and they felt we may share similar area concerns. A few of our initial reorganization meetings with the city were actually held at the Waverly before the Parks Dept donated use of the Eola House for our community meetings.. and from time to time we've had Waverly residents come to our association meetings. At the end of the day the city asked us to organize, to bring community issues to the table for residents that were not being represented. (Sorry for rambling)

Can't wait to see what GAI comes up w from all the public meetings to create the new 'Master Plan' for improvements to the park. One of the bigger things I think gets overlooked is there really isn't anything to tie together the history/different areas around the park. You mention the Ting and amphitheater, wouldn't it be cool to share the story of how this is the 4th amphitheater on the lake ? There's the 'Sister Cities' sign by WOB but it's in the middle of some grass and idk if there's anything to read there about how those cities are tied to Orlando. If you take the entrance into the park across from Publix there are two plaques to the left and right, the one on the right is so far in you have to go into the landscaping to really see it and both just seem really random. The marble from Taiwan and the bridge over nothing by Rosalind either go overlooked or leave people with a big question mark. At least the busts along the bridge they built in the 90s have info you can read about them, but also seem dropped in the park without much purpose to their location that's now mainly (only?) really used for the farmer's market. I think an online walking tour of the city's history as it's represented around the lake would be really awesome. Maybe have QR codes to a map of items in the park, then each item have a QR to it's info. A sign somewhere to teach my mom how to use QR codes would also have to be placed. Lol

The very 1st pic in this thread is of The Paramount, so I thought I’d post that they recently finished adding letters down the side of the bldg. I think it looks great, as if its always been this way and def adds to the deco flair of the bldg. When I went out to take the pics, I noticed they even put a smaller sign above the Publix exit on Central Blvd. CitiTower had initially filed to have a backlit sign across the top of their bldg and they don't, so idk what happened w that but it could be neat. Also idk if it's ok to post a link here ? The name of this thread is Lake Eola Neighborhood and it's kind of a mix of Eola Heights and South Eola stuff right ? There's no actual Lake Eola neighborhood. Although when we formed our neighborhood association in 2016 the city said we could “name yourselves anything you want” and a few people suggested the Lake Eola neighborhood association bc the lake is in South Eola. In the end we didn’t, it's the South Eola association bc that's the name of our neighborhood - why try to be something else ? Anyway, we worked with residents and the Orlando Regional History Center to put together this page on our website dedicated to the history of South Eola and I hope it’s ok to share here = southeola.org/history Have a great day !

I'm not surprised they are having so many open houses after it took so long to complete, went to one over the weekend and they said two have sold. The buyer for the end unit in the pics above is moving in already - other end unit in pics below is under contract. Anyone who can afford it will def be happy w the amount of space, the finishes, and location. One thing I def noticed was the side windows on the end units are really nice, like a wall of windows, but then the interior unit I walked through was still bright without them. The main difference w end units aside from the extra windows and having only one shared wall, is the detached garage vs the interior units you walk right into your ground level. End units get some extra sqft for the detached garage though, and there are guest prkg spots which is nice, it's something that's becoming harder to find in the neighborhood. They came out great, and each one is a little different w mixed metals, tile, lighting, etc. The views from all the windows are great, not just from the roof deck. Tbh I hadn't actually seen a sales listing before I went to the open house and left very impressed. This is one still available and has a 3D walkthrough, should def check it out: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/625-E-Pine-St-Orlando-FL-32801/2076655247_zpid/

the bus lane info is interesting, i can see what you are saying there. everywhere else in the city the path has wide turns to accommodate how much room it needs but the roads here are narrow/two lanes - during a site inspection either the city or lynx admitted the lymmo path should never have been placed on church st but prob for reasons like you said, it's not going anywhere. the corner of church/summerlin is bonkers, were these two roads always meant to support this much traffic ? over the past year during multiple city presentations they spoke of density and building density in the city core, but I don't think these roads were made/meant to handle traffic at the current volume let alone when the 520 is completed and hundreds more vehicles hit the streets with all the daily commuters and pass through traffic.. all this land has been rezoned for density without addressing infrastructure

posted about this before and then the project stalled so, had honestly hoped they reconsidered. nope ! they've set up shop and appears they are in fact widening the lane at the end of the street - not making a turn lane which would actually help traffic, just wider for the Lymmo bus to get by ? opens the door for even more dangerous driving than we see here already.. but they've made up their mind to do it so kudos to them for sticking to it ? i guess ? has anyone seen a lane shift like this anywhere else in the city ? seems with all the development on Church St that there should be some level of community input to address this, the stop signs we had to literally fight for at Eola & Osceola, couldn't they simply reroute the Lymmo bus which they already do quite frequently ? what a waste of money and nobody would reply to emails, seems public service is only with whom you choose to serve.

there are some really cool pop up beer gardens in/around boston that all disappear in the fall for obvious reasons, i think this is a perfect idea for us right now when you can actually spend time outside.. i'm in !! (even if that side of lake ave is technically CBD not SE lol)

As far as Target goes, South Eola is perfectly situated that E. Colonial and SoDo are both 2.5mi away, it simply depends on which one has what we want in stock.. we go to both equally taking Summerlin down to avoid S. Orange & Robinson to avoid Colonial. The HD are both hit or miss, E. Colonial is closer but Lee Rd sometimes has better stuff. Somehow Orlando (the land of chain restaurants) has left downtown without an Uno's, TGiF or Friendly Confines.. places we like to visit either out of town or in surrounding areas. Tbh after moving back to FL/the South Eola neighborhood we didn't even own a car for 6mo bc it's the most walkable neighborhood in Orlando. Love that we only need 7min to walk to Publix, we have awesome restaurants here, bars, etc. Who needs a chain ??

Have they taken actual sound readings ? If you call OPD non emergency to make a complaint they'll ask "would you like to meet with an officer ?" say yes and request they bring a decibel reader. If I remember correctly it shouldn't have to be taken by code enforcement. When they come (and have the equipment) ask to see what the reading is, and are they reading dBA? dBC? If they don't have the equipment or say it has to be code taking the reading, Eddie Crespo is the person who handles this area and he'll definitely return a call to talk to you about what's going on. For an entire year we had ridiculous bass coming through our walls from the Tsar nightclub, every time we called they said the level wasn't enough for a violation. I finally got a decibel reader and took video with imbedded date, time, geo location, showing the bass was 20dBC over the 10pm-7am sound ordinance limit. Of course then the story changed to "our equipment must be broken" so Comm Sheehan bought them new equipment. They finally cited the nightclub but what a process, legit robs you of the ability to enjoy your own home. So many sleepless nights.

The DDB & Orlando Main Street are ignoring that what they're doing isn't working. Counter to their efforts to appropriate South Eola for Thornton Park (or turn SE into TPWest?) time itself will establish South Eola as the complete 'City Living' package it is, the only downtown neighborhood with a Live Work Play lifestyle that without a doubt blows the idea of being Thornton Park as a selling point out of the water. South Eola has a Publix, Lake Eola (!!) and the only dog park downtown in Constitution Green. Building a brand/identity for South Eola around these things alone would 100% draw more people and in the long term be better for business than any manufactured counterfeit claim. Is building a brand from the ground up more work than the TPD telling businesses to call themselves "Blank of Thornton Park" ?? Sure, but for as successful as the TPD is in promoting itself, I can count 10 businesses that have closed here in the last 3yrs. If the city, DDB, Main Street, etc. and SE neighborhood association could actually work together to tap in to the identity of South Eola, businesses could flourish (without a forced connection to something they do not identify with) that authenticity would lead the way for something to become the fabric of our community and live here forever .. like a Dexters, or Maxines. The Osceola corner GF retail in 420 that's never been occupied (or any of the impending 520 space) could finally be what it takes to draw people in/throughout the neighborhood - but then things like naming 420 "Camden TP" adds that drag on progress, the "that's our story and we're sticking to it" rubber stamp. Le sigh..