Winter Park City Commission approves naming policy for new library/event center

What’s in a name? For the city of Winter Park it could be a boost in funding for one of the city’s biggest projects of the past several years.

Winter Park City Commissioners voted on Monday, Nov. 27 to create a new funding source for the new library/event center planned for Martin Luther King Jr. Park.

A new donor naming policy for the project’s buildings and various indoor and outdoor spaces would help the Winter Park Public Library pay for their $2.5 million portion of the new facility’s cost.

The policy would also help pay for several unexpected features added to the project’s conceptual design, including a rooftop venue on top of the event center and an outdoor amphitheater on Lake Mendsen.

A donor must contribute at least 50 percent of the cost for the library building or the events center in order to obtain naming rights. Other features like the rooftop venue on the events center and the outdoor amphitheater require 100 percent of the cost.

But some members of the Winter Park City Commission had heartburn about giving only the mayor, the city manager and the library’s board of trustees the final say in approving the names. 

Some believed the Commission as a whole should decide, since they all answer to the residents.

“We approve everything in this community,” Commissioner Sarah Sprinkel said.

“I do believe we should have some kind of oversight.”

City Manager Randy Knight said that the city wants to avoid the ordeal of approving names in a meeting – a process that could drive away potential donors, he said.

“Donors don’t want to be publicly scrutinized,” Knight said. “That’s what we’re attempting to avoid – that public vote, up or down, on a name.”

The City Commission reasoned that it should at least have control in the cost percentages for the naming policy, and whether or not exceptions can be made.

City Attorney Kurt Ardaman suggested changes to the policy language to help appease the City Commission: clarifying that the library board of trustees “has naming authority” instead of “retains final naming authority.” New language also states that exceptions of naming costs may be recommended by the city manager for approval by the City Commission.

The naming policy was unanimously approved by Winter Park City Commissioners with the two changes proposed by Ardaman.

“In everything we do in the dais, we have to have a little faith in one another,” Mayor Steve Leary said.

“I expect Randy Knight to be in communication with the City Commission about this item.”

Sprouts Farmers Market plaza

The Winter Park City Commission also voted on the redevelopment of the old Whole Foods Market/Title Boxing plaza at the corner of Lakemont and Aloma avenues.

The project would include a Sprouts Farmers Market and 12,250 feet of retail space.

But some residents expressed concerns about the lack of parking available in the plaza, and how traffic spills out into the surrounding neighborhoods.

“Right now the way it exists, it doesn’t support the customers that want to go there,” resident David Williams said.

“Where are all these cars going to go?”

Resident Dan Slage said he knew exactly where the cars will end up.

“Edwin [road] is going to be a disaster more than it already is,” he said. “When Whole Foods left the traffic went down significantly. With the parking problem that’s going on in that shopping center, everyone is going to be parking legally or illegally in that neighborhood.”

City Commissioners reasoned that the parking spaces on the opposite end of the plaza could be utilized more to help ease the parking parking problems. The project met all code requirements, and the Commission approved the project unanimously.