Daniels Road Business Park will include grocery store, retailers

Winter Garden drivers along Daniels Road likely have noticed quite a bit of dirt being moved just south of State Road 50.

Construction is well underway on the Daniels Road Business Park project, and representatives from Intram Investments Inc. said the company is on schedule to deliver the project to the tenants early in the second quarter of 2023.

The project, at 1200 Daniels Road and 1211 Winter Garden Vineland Road, is owned by Daniels 4 Partners LLC, an affiliate of Intram, which is supervising the development of the project. 

“We are building a first-class retail shopping center at the corner that will be anchored by a national grocer not presently in the Orlando market,” Intram Executive Vice President Randy Hodge said. “We expect that the remaining retail spaces in the center will be occupied by a mix of restaurants and specialty retailers.” 

PROJECTED PLANS

Winter Garden Community Development Director Steve Pash said the request is to develop the property with a two-phase plan. However, the request approved by the City Commission in April was for the review of the first phase only. 

Phase 1 consists of a 53,344-square-foot multi-tenant commercial building with a 40,344-square-foot grocery store and 13,000 square feet of other retail space. 

Pash said Phase 2 is covered by a large mass of trees originally shown to be removed. However, the applicant agreed to save all the non-invasive trees on the lot. 

Pash also addressed access on Daniels Road and certain restricted areas. He said the city’s traffic engineer reviewed this for the Development Review Committee and noted the proposed development does impact the wetlands, speaking of areas of removal, preservation and addition of trees. 

The site currently houses 3.56 acres of wetlands, with 1.67 acres to be removed and preservation of 1.89 acres. The developer also will add in .94 acres of wetland buffers to preserve, protect and enhance the wetlands. 

“We spent several months during the site design working with the city of Winter Garden to preserve as much of the on-site wetlands as possible,” Hodge said. “In fact, a stand of hardwood wetland trees which had previously been approved to be demolished has been set aside and will not be impacted.”

The plans were reviewed and approved by the DRC and staff recommended approval, subject to conditions as stated in the DRC report. Approval of the oversize agreement was also recommended.

DEVELOPMENT BACKGROUND

During the Feb. 18, 2019, commission meeting, previous developer and property owner Dan Roberts appealed to commissioners and presented information he had hoped would convince them to vote against city staff’s recommendation to reject his site plan. During that meeting, the commission agreed to review the case and postpone their decision until Feb. 28, which was then denied. 

The proposed development would have allowed for the construction of five new office/retail buildings on the 6.25-acre property located at 1200 Daniels Road, situated on the southwest corner of Daniels Road and West Colonial Drive behind the Burger King and SunTrust Bank. 

According to the agenda, city officials recommended denial of Roberts’ site plan because they believed the project failed to meet the code requirements for developments located in wetlands. 

The proposed project would have required the removal of four acres of wetlands on the property. But Roberts maintained the wetlands are distressed and in poor condition. As a result, he purchased $175,000 in wetland-mitigation credits outside of the city limits.

Intram obtained the property in December 2020. 

“What is presently permitted is just the first phase of our project,” Hodge said. “We expect to be able to announce further development along Daniels Road in the next few months.”

Heather Coons, of BluRock Commercial Real Estate, is managing the leasing. HGR Construction is the general contractor. The buildings were designed by Cuhaci Peterson, and the civil engineer, Carnahan Proctor & Cross, designed all the site work.