Ocoee Commission passes preliminary plan for City Center

OCOEE — The Ocoee City Commission passed the preliminary site and subdivision plan for the City Center West Orange project at its regular meeting April 21.

This project incorporates a 54.74-acre plot that is along Maine Street, east of South Bluford Avenue, north of West Colonial Drive and partially adjoins Lake Bennet.

In the one parcel on the lake among four parcels on the property, 15.84-acre Parcel 2, developers from Park Development Corporation proposed a 2.4 million-square-foot mixed-use commercial, office and multi-family development accessible by Richmond Avenue and Ocoee Town Center Boulevard extending from South Bluford Avenue from the southwest. The other three parcels will be reserved for right-of-way, open space, stormwater abatement and potential future development on the northern side of Maine Street.

Development is scheduled for three phases, City Planner Mike Rumer said, with the City Center built around a six-floor parking garage.

“Phase one will consist of a parking garage wrapped with retail on the bottom floor, a hotel, office space, restaurant, commercial, retail,” Rumer said. “Then above it will be a condominium apartment. There is a green roof atop the parking garage, which would be an amenity for the condominiums and hotel.”

That green space includes plans for a pool and perhaps tennis courts, according to renderings. Office space, restaurants and possibly other commercial space will be on the second and third floors and adjoin an office building. The condominiums and hotels would extend from floor four to floor nine, with restricted access to permanent residents’ parking and elevator levels, and the top three floors would overlook the green space, said Jean Amm, Park Development Corporation senior vice president.

“This project is all thought up, and it’s a city center with everything in one building,” Amm said. “And it provides that urban look for the city and the family living at the same time they can be using restaurants and (shopping).”

At the moment, there is no development at the site, which is covered with a mix of trees and contains 15.2 acres of wetlands, with a vertical construction time of about 18 months expected once initiated.

“I think that project, if it comes to happening, is probably worth $200 million or $300 million of economic development there,” District 3 Commissioner Rusty Johnson said. “We’ve all sat here for a few years trying to get something to happen, and if that does happen, it’ll be a great asset to the city.”

The developers requested four waivers from the Land Development Code, all consistent with the Community Redevelopment Agency Target Areas Special Development Plan for Target Area 2, which city staff supported. The developers will pave Maine Street from the eastern property edge to the western edge, Rumer said.

CITY PROPERTY

The commission approved the sale of the city’s Ocoee Crown Point residential property to its selected buyer, Mattamy Homes, at a price of $7.5 million. Half of that money would be contingent on closing conditions of approval of a final subdivision plan by Jan. 15, 2016, and the other half in a second closing within 18 months of the first.

City staff compiled information on a four-parcel property owned by Certi-Fine Fruit Co. comprising the western corners of the intersection of Kissimmee Avenue and Floral Street. Staff hired Property Valuation & Consulting Inc. to provide a fee appraisal of that property, treating two contiguous industrial parcels as one unit. That two-acre unit had an appraised value of $191,000; a 0.19-acre residential parcel was worth $19,000 per the appraisal; and a 0.37-acre residential parcel held a $37,000 value in the appraisal, for a total value of $247,000.

City Manager Robert Frank said Ocoee staff had negotiated with Certi-Fine Fruit officials at significantly higher prices and that buying the parcels would be a good move if the commission is serious about developing downtown.

Johnson said the commission would need to find a way to get the money together and move forward with such development. District 2 Commissioner Rosemary Wilsen said residents would need to invest in that process via a millage increase to start true change, which many of her residents favor and could be only temporary.

CITY BOARDS

City staff recommended avoiding an inadvertent violation of the Florida Constitution requirement that prohibits dual office held by volunteer officeholders, which would mean no person could serve on more than one of these city boards: Code Enforcement Board, Board of Adjustment, Violations Hearing Board, Planning and Zoning Commission/Local Planning Agency, Police Officers and Firefighters’ Retirement Trust Fund Board of Trustees and General Employees’ Retirement Trust Fund Board of Trustees. The commission passed a motion to prohibit such dual membership, with plans to ask one current dual member which board he would prefer to leave.

The commission also passed three appointments to city groups. Appointments were Mark Scalzo for the Citizen Advisory Council for Ocoee Fire Department with a three-year term ending Nov. 1, 2018, and Nathaniel Briggs for both a three-year term with the Human Relations Diversity Board ending in May 2018 and a term with the Planning and Zoning Commission ending in February 2018.

ROADS

Per the recommendation of Public Works Director Steve Krug, the commission awarded a $426,526.15 bid to The Middlesex Corporation to pave about four miles of roads involving the Sawmill, Lake Olympia Club and Meadows subdivisions; Bay, West Ohio and Floral streets; Ocoee Hills Road; Lakeshore Center parking areas; and Bluford and Ridgefield avenues.

Commissioners discussed plans to dedicate a segment of roadway near the intersection of North Clarke and East Silver Star roads to Aubrey Clark by name.

Contact Zak Kerr at [email protected].