Winter Park considers more annexation

Winter Park Mayor Ken Bradley shared ambitious ideas of how to boost economic growth during last week’s Economic Development Advisory Board meeting, bringing up the potential the city has to expand its boundaries.

Last month’s Economic Development Advisory Board meeting involved a discussion of revitalizing the city’s major commercial corridors, including Fairbanks Avenue and Denning Drive.

Board members picked up the conversation once again last Tuesday, including the Mayor in their discussion.

Bradley mentioned a number of ideas to stimulate the economy, including a completely new approach: annexation.

“It’s kind of an opportunity for us; we’ve never discussed annexation as a city,” Bradley said. “I would like in the last year and a half of my mayor’s term that we at least have a conversation about annexation, a conversation about annexation that may extend our commercial corridor further out.”

“Aloma Avenue is doable frankly. I think it could be something that could be done within our service areas and might even add to our economic engine.”

The city annexed 51 acres of land last year into the city as part of the future Ravaudage development, but that same land had already been previously de-annexed temporarily to ease the permitting process.

Members of the advisory board struggled to recall another instance where the city annexed land from Orange County

“I don’t want to describe it as a radical departure, but it is radical in a sense and provides a wide range of opportunities,” board member Owen Beitsch said.

But annexation wasn’t the only idea the Bradley brought to the table. The SunRail station coming next spring will potentially boost the number of visitors coming to Park Avenue, and Bradley contemplated the possibility of more transportation options to take these visitors to other corridors throughout the city.

“Do we begin to look at some sort of circulator system or other kinds of streetcars?” Bradley said. “That’s something where our federal, local and state government can come together and ultimately impact us. “

“We’ve just got to figure out as a city how we get people from the SunRail stop to 17-92.”

Bradley brought up the idea of bringing more museums to Winter Park as well, believing that the city of art and culture could stand to have a few more unique collections of treasured artifacts.

“There’s several people who think that Winter Park would be home to some great museums,” Bradley said. “We are home to some good museums today – great museums, world-class – but there could be a few more.”

Economic Development Advisory Board chairman Marc Reicher assured the mayor that the board will continue to focus on future economic growth, no matter which route they take with boosting the economy.

“We have really tried to turn our focus to serve the community in terms of what can we do to sustainability,” Reicher said.

“When we look at the corridors in terms of economic opportunity, we’re almost translating that into how can we make these corridors assist in sustainability and the future enhancement and future growth of the things that are important to the everyday person in Winter Park.”

The Economic Development Advisory Board requested to receive a package of city maps to further explore the possibility of annexation.