Plans approved to replace Mt. Vernon Inn

The new project that will replace Winter Park’s historic Mt. Vernon Inn has been given the green light to start construction.

City Commissioners gave final approval on Monday for the 68,600-square-foot Lakeside Crossing project, the latest development in Winter Park by Unicorp National Development Inc.

The development sitting along U.S. Highway 17-92 across from the Lakeside Winter Park shopping plaza will include three restaurants and 10 retail spaces, accompanied by 300 parking spaces spread between a parking lot and a two-floor garage.

It’s a project that combines the charm of Winter Park with something more modern, said Unicorp President Chuck Whittall.

“We want the elegance of Park Avenue but with the poshness you’d find in a brand new development,” Whittall said. “We’re really not going the next mile, but the next 10 miles in architecture and design.”

The parking will play a part in relieving the parking woes in the shopping plaza across the street, Whittall told City Commissioners earlier this year. The popularity of the plaza’s Trader Joe’s location continues to bring large crowds of residents, with multiple cars circling the parking lot trying to find spaces.

Winter Park Mayor Steve Leary said more parking is a welcomed site.

“I think all the parking we can provide to residents and guests in the community is helpful,” Leary said.

The project approved on Monday followed a long winding road of amendments and downsizing. The project was originally shown to residents last July as a 170-unit apartment complex and parking garage with retail and restaurant space mixed in. That design was met with reluctance from many residents and some City Commissioners, fearing the project wasn’t in character with Winter Park and could potentially make existing traffic problems worse along U.S. 17-92.

“Already 17-92 and the side streets as well are just overwhelmed with traffic,” Winter Park resident Barbara Bytell said during an informational meeting last October. “They were not designed to carry that amount of traffic.”

But some residents believe the project has become too plain. Former Winter Park Mayor Joe Terranova said during a February City Commission meeting the development has become a disappointment since Commissioners requested the project be scaled-down. The project could have instead been the city’s first planned development – one of mixed-use buildings of larger size, he added.

“What we have here is a nice design, but it’s a strip mall,” Terranova said. “It doesn’t add anything to the character of Winter Park. It doesn’t do anything for 17-92. It’s same old, same old.”

The Mt. Vernon Inn meanwhile has become dilapidated, with many of its windows broken and its doors boarded up.

Whittall said the Inn will be torn down within the next 30 days. An application has also been made to increase the garage’s height from two levels to three levels, which will go before the city’s planning and zoning board in June, Whittall said.