ORLANDO, Fla. – As new communities are being planned to meet the growth of Central Florida, mixed-use developments are rising in popularity.
By blending a variety of residential options with retail, commercial, and sometimes industrial spaces, these types of neighborhoods offer residents a live-work-play setting. One very successful example is Orlando’s Baldwin Park community.
Sprinkled throughout the award-winning neighborhood a few miles from downtown Orlando are signs of the past. For decades, the land that makes up Baldwin Park was used for military purposes, including a base for the U.S. Army Corps and eventually a Naval Training Center before operations ceased in the 1990s.
It was then redeveloped in 2003 into a walkable live-work-play neighborhood that’s now home to 10,000 residents. There are plenty of restaurants, a CVS and a Publix neighbors can walk to, and the 2.5-mile loop around Lake Baldwin is a popular place to exercise.
Baldwin Park was a vision from the city of Orlando that was implemented by Jim Constantine and the town architects at Looney Ricks Kiss (LRK).
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“That’s what makes it incredibly unique,” Constantine said. “That ability for a walkable lifestyle all with a great degree of urbanism.”
When residents decide to leave the neighborhood, though, they often don’t go far. News 6 has spoken to several nearby business owners and restauranters who credit their success because of Baldwin Park’s rise in popularity, including Thomas Ward who opened Pig Floyd’s in the Mills 50 district in 2013.
“When I was looking at the area it was said to be a C+,” Ward said. “Today it’s an A+. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact Baldwin Park became a major community.”
“It’s very gratifying,” Constantine said about Baldwin Park’s halo effect. “I think it also probably speaks a bit to when people really love a place, they stay close to home.”
Something else that’s led to Baldwin Park’s success is the diversity of housing options you can find. Along New Broad Street, for example, you can find million-dollar homes with condos and apartments close by.
“It’s a complete community,” Constantine said. “It has a full range of different housing types for people in any stage of their life and across a variety of price levels.”
Out of the nearly 1,100 acres that makes up Baldwin Park, 400 acres of that is open space.
As new communities are designed in Central Florida’s growing region, Constantine believes developers and planners can draw inspiration from the Baldwin Park blueprint.
“There’s an opportunity to perhaps recraft how some of that growth occurs,” he said. “Baldwin Park is the perfect balanced model of how you can have housing, shopping and services, education, and employment all in one location.”
It’s been a while since Baldwin Park has added new housing, but that’s about to change. A 223-unit, five-story apartment complex is slated to open next year at the site of the former Fairwinds Credit Union on Lakemont Avenue.
LRK is also behind the architecture and design of the Celebration and Oakland Park communities. The firm is now involved in the $1.2 billion Wyld Oaks mixed-use development that’s taking shape in Apopka’s booming Kelly Park corridor.
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