Planning & Zoning Board - Regular Meeting

like to call to order the planning and zoning board meeting for August 18th, 2026. Can we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance?

Member Sutton?

Present.

Member Sutton?

Are you here?

Present.

Member Ross? Chair Brown?

Present.

Vice Chair Elliott is absent. Member Tyree? Present. And Member Kulikowski is absent as well.

We have a quorum.

All right, I'd like to open it up for public forum. Would anybody, is there anyone here that wishes to speak? Seeing none, hearing none, I will close the floor. Has everyone had a chance to review the meeting minutes from June 16th? Are there any questions or comments? Can I get a motion to approve the meeting? All in favor?

Excuse me. We just need a second on the motion before we can.

Please turn your mic on if you second it.

All in favor?

We can orally say, yeah. Go ahead.

All in favor?

Aye.

Please make sure your mics are on the whole time, even if you're not speaking.

All right, new business. Ordinance number 202605, Oakland Town Center rezoning development agreement and preliminary subdivision plan.

An ordinance of the town of Oakland, Florida adopting a town official zoning map amendment from C1 commercial general within the urban corridor design district to PUD plan unit development within the urban corridor design district or certain real property owned by Oakland town center LLC, generally located on the north side of state road 50 at the Northwest corner of the intersection of state road 50 and Catherine Ross road. As more particularly described herein, with an approximate size of 14.80 acres, approving a development agreement between the property owner and the Town of Oakland, and approving a preliminary subdivision plan, making findings and providing for conflicts, servability, and an effective date.

evening members of the planning board so before we go into the um the overall design of the actual project we'll start off a little bit of background information of the property itself so there without going through all the numbers this particular property is comprised of five distinct parcels of land which total just under 15 acres It contains both a commercial zoning district and future land use classification and is located within the town's urban urban corridor design district. The intent and purpose of the case tonight is, as mentioned, to rezone the subject property from commercial general to PUD planned unit development. to approval of a companion development agreement and preliminary subdivision plan, and the approval of architectural building elevations. Just as a little bit of context as to why this is all coming in as one encompassing package, it is kind of a layer cake situation, whereas in order to rezone to the PUD zoning district, You're required to have a subsequent development agreement which sets the rules and guidelines for how the property under the PUD is to develop. As an exhibit to a development agreement, we're required to have a preliminary site plan, subdivision plan, which is why all together, which lastly, as part of that subdivision plan, there will also be elevations to get an idea of what the project would actually look like, ensure it meets the intent and purpose of the town's design districts. So that being said, that's why all of these items are being reviewed and presented together under this single ordinance. So giving a little bit of spatial location here are the five parcels of land, you can see, the only thing taking away from the complete rectangle of this property is the existing tractor supplies company store. Now we'll go a little bit into the actual project overview itself. So the Oakland town center development is proposed to comprise of 11 distinct commercial buildings varying sizes of configuration from a 10,000 square foot multi tenant space, all the way down to about a 1200 square foot drive through establishment. In total, the sum of the square footage of all these buildings is 84,020 square feet, and it would be accessed off of five distinct access points. And if you can see where my cursor is here, two of those would be off of the existing kind of through street from in front of the tractor supply store, one directly off of State Road 50, two and two off of Oh, I know I could do that to off of Catherine Ross road and, as you'll notice here, I can get so the way if you'll notice here as part of the development, the applicant is proposing to construct at their cost a. Another access point another roadway which through the development agreement would be dedicated to the town as public right of way. And the last note there is that in the subject site, the current elevation of the subject site includes a very drastic decrease from the north to the south. The engineer for the project is here and can give a little bit more background during the applicant presentation. But essentially, in order to develop the site, as you see here, a lot of fill is going to have to be brought in. And this site will have to utilize a retaining wall in order to create a elevation that is suitable in order to develop a project of this size and magnitude. But we'll go a little bit into that once we get to the elevation portions of this project. Here you can see the civil site plan, those 11 buildings, most of them of which are more of that multi-tenant commercial space. Aside from these two down here, and we'll see a little bit more of the distinction between the building types once we get to the actual elevations and the proposed renderings of the buildings. Here you can see this darker line. This does reference that retaining wall that I previously mentioned. giving a little bit more greenery, if you will, to the visualization of the project. Here's the proposed landscape plan. As part of what was mentioned in the introduction, both the civil plan set that you saw on the last slide and the landscape plan you're looking at here, all of this is comprised to make up the preliminary subdivision plan that is part of the item that you are reviewing this evening. And I should also note that during the appearance review board meeting of which this project was previously heard before, the discussion among the board members was whether or not it would be possible for the applicant to incorporate a little bit more landscape hedging in between the commercial buildings and the school to the north. That's not reflected on this plan. That wasn't the condition of approval by the ARB, but it was part of the discussion that was had amongst the board members. So as a follow up to that, the applicant during their presentation does have a revised site plan that incorporates that additional landscaping following up the board members discussions. So going a little bit more into the development agreement portion of this project. So as I mentioned, in order to rezone to the PUD zoning district, there does need to be a set of guidelines or regulations, if you will, which are outlined in the companion development agreement. Some of the highlights here, the complete agreement is part of the agenda packet, but some of the highlights do facilitate what kind of businesses and uses are allowed to go on the property. So as you can see there, it is a little more all encompassing commercial retail office restaurant with only one drive-through is an important caveat. The maximum there could only ever be one drive-through under this PUD development agreement. educational and clinic uses so it does provide a wide range of potential options that could go on into these buildings however there are also restrictions as to what cannot go into those buildings those of which include smoke and tobacco shops marijuana dispensary facilities those are explicitly prohibited per the language of the development agreement Then are also specific terms and variations from the traditional standards of the land development code that were negotiated as part of the creation of the development agreement. As an example, some of the standards include giving the maximum width of commercial buildings along State Road 50, 240 feet just to maximize the to maximize the frontage and create a full commercial store frontage along the primary roadway adjacent to the property. So as part of their role, the Appearance Review Board does have the ability to make specific recommendations and dimensional variances to the town's design district requirements, special exceptions or variances. The ARB's job, which the project was heard before a couple of weeks ago, Their job is to review the proposals to ensure that these variations do not take away from the intent and purpose of the particular design district in which the property and project is to be located in. And as part of this process that are now coming before you for review as well, the applicant group did provide a specific list of several variances that were reviewed and considered by the ARB. So here's a brief outline. There's a little bit more in your agenda packets, but here's the overall breakdown includes first with commercial building fenestration, the town's land development code does require that commercial buildings contain 60% building fenestration, fenestration being a measure of openings in a building, doors, windows, what have you. The applicant group did provide an alternate measure of calculations. And again, they'll go into this a little bit more during their portion. I believe the architect's actually here to speak on it a little more. But basically, the key consideration is the fact that there is that large retaining wall that has to be put into place in order to build this property to what you see in the site plan. So a lot of that is focusing the fenestration and construction pedestrian-oriented amenities on the interior of the building where everyone is going to be traveling to, whether it be vehicularly or walking, biking, what have you, while also making sure that the exterior facing the roadway still contain that architectural quality and excellence to avoid massing and just blank walls and building frontages. In addition to the building fenestration, there were two distinct variances requested regarding the monument signage, the first being the number. So per the town's general standards, only one sign is permitted per development per project. As part of this, they are requesting three ground-mounted signs, two of which would be your traditional list of tenants on State Road 50 and Catherine Ross Road. Whereas the third, and again, I think the applicant group can explain this a little better than I can, but essentially the third would serve as a gateway sign to kind of introduce the project. And we'll get a better visual of what that'll actually look like once we get to the renderings in this presentation. And the last related to signage two of those signs the applicant group is requesting to be a maximum of 51 square feet of copy area, the general town standard is 48 square feet for for monument or freestanding monument sign so two of those signs are requesting three more square feet of copy area. So now i'll go through these fairly quickly, but here the next batch of slides are going to be the proposed building elevations and I did provide a key on each one so you're able to see where, in relation to the overall site plan this building is proposed to be located. So i'll just kind of go through these. Is it this this building, you see here, this is one of the ones that would be fronting state road 50, as you can see. These would essentially be the back of house for the commercial buildings, but still maintain texturing breaking up of architectural features great gradations and coloring still create. To still create visually appeal visually appealing buildings, while can while having, as you can see here that the primary fenestration to the interior of the site. You can see another building more to the interior. Here's the other primary building fronting state road 50. This building has its side profile directly facing Catherine Ross Road, whereas this is the other building, which is this is the building that has the primary frontage along Catherine Ross Road. For the last two, these are the most different out of the two. So these are the smallest of the commercial buildings proposed. So this one you can see is a multi tenant, a two tenant building, conducive to you see sometimes with restaurants, others, smaller shops. And lastly, as mentioned, the development agreement does allow a maximum of one drive through facility. And this is the proposed rendering, or that one drive through facility. And here you see, as I mentioned, there are two signs that are the traditional identification signs that'll list the tenants that would be going into the facility or into the facilities. And these, as I mentioned, one would be located along that primary entrance off of State Road 50 and another off of one of the entrances to Catherine Ross Road. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, As to that third sign I mentioned, here's that kind of is for the lack of a better word the keynote which sir, which would be located at the corner of the project and be kind of an introduction to the site as you approached it going west on State road 50 So going into a little bit of the staff analysis, this project site, as mentioned, is located within the town's urban corridor design district, the intent and purpose of which is to accommodate larger mixed use types of projects along major commercial corridors. Rural analysis staff did find that the development is consistent with the design districts purpose of supporting those. Higher intensity commercial uses with the both local and regional accessibility along major transportation corridors. And the project would also help facilitate the redevelopment of an underutilized vacant piece of land along as mentioned a very major transportation corridor. And lastly, the development could promote economic investment and support job creation with the town, which through our analysis staff did concur was the intent and purpose of the urban corridor design district. As mentioned, this property was reviewed by the town's Appearance Review Board at their August 4th meeting. Through staff discussion and post-presentation, the ARB did recommend unanimously to approve the project as presented before both them and you here as the Planning and Zoning Board this evening. With that said, staff does find the proposed Oakland town center substantially compliant with the town's LDC design district requirements and do recommend approval of ordinance 2026 dash oh five as presented. Looking. And what the next steps would be for this project as an ordinance, it would have to go before the town commission twice for first and second reading. As you can see here the proposed to schedule dates on August 25 next Tuesday and then for second reading on September 9 2026. That concludes staff's presentation. I am available for questions, but also we do have the applicant group who has their own presentation. So if you'd like, I can let them go first, and then I would still be available if you guys had anything else. Thank you, guys.

Would the applicant like to speak?

Good evening. Logan Opsall, 215 North Eola Drive. Thanks for being here this evening. We're excited about this project. Before I dive in, just bring up Alex to introduce himself and talk about the project team that we were able to fill the room with tonight.

First, I just want to thank each one of you for allowing us to potentially do this project here. It's a real honor. This project has been a long time in the making. There was a period of time where we didn't think we were gonna be able to feasibly do this project because of the engineering and the site work that this project entails. It's quite expensive. As you know, Highway 50 has just gained a lot of momentum in this particular area over the last call it five or 10 years, which now makes a project like this feasible. We envision Oakland Town Center to be a It's an incredible, vibrant center that is cozy. You're going to see it's raised up a little bit from Highway 50, which at first, when I saw this visual, it's going to maybe be like, what is this? Because it is kind of an odd thing. What I've come away with is it gives it a real private feel. It's gonna give this Oakland Town Center a real private feel. It's gonna separate it from Highway 50 and it raises it up. It's nice, it's safe. It's very pedestrian friendly. We picture a lot of cafes here, a lot of restaurants, things of this nature, which you'll see in the presentation today. And to bring this together, we've had Kimley Horn, who I think you guys use for your own projects, who's been instrumental in this. Obviously, we have Logan and Tara, who've helped us here immensely. Costell, who is part of our architecture team. And then we have Alexi, who's helping us lease this product. And she can give you some insights and kind of the tenants that we've seen interest in. And I think it bodes well for Oakland. I mean, I love Oakland. Steve Healy is a good friend of mine who does projects here. And we talk about what this can be, what this can be for not just the town, but for Orlando. We kind of want to make this a feature of something. It's very important for us to execute on this and do a great job. And I just want to thank all of you for hearing our presentation today.

thanks alex so we'll dive right in and i'll i'll be fairly efficient with your time taylor did a really good job at his presentation so we can go to the next slide i want to offer you some visual representations of what's going in here the oakland town center i think is something uniquely oakland and it's in a place that welcomes residents and visitors really to the gates of the town. You'll see throughout these conceptual renderings that the way that the project is organized and lined up allows for kind of a unique feel. And as Alex put, I like the word cozy as well. So you have a variety of uses within the PUD. And I just want to address this, too. There's a number of items before you in the ordinance that you're making a recommendation on tonight.

This is far from shooting from the hip.

I really commend and thank your staff for all of their consultants for all of the back and forth. And the result is a PUD development agreement preliminary site plan that can achieve the goals that we're showing you visually tonight. The other thing I'll note, and I'll hit this again in the next slide or two, is ordinarily when I and before jurisdictions talking about a planned unit development, we don't need to separately talk about deviations. Planned unit development zoning designation is a negotiated zoning district in which we're able to achieve things like what you wanna see here and what you don't wanna see here, and what kind of design criteria that's gonna make this look good here in the town. But I appreciate the fact that we are able to call out the specific requests so that we can cover everything in detail. and that's the fenestration. You're gonna see it in these visualizations. We can go to the next slide. This isn't just a string of units. The way that the buildings are laid out, some of the water features, the pedestrian connectivity, the courtyards, those allow for kind of a breakup and a blending of the fenestration that, yes, slightly deviates from your code, but what it does is provide functionality and it caters to the tenant preferences and those top-notch tenants that were, Alex referenced, that we're catering to to go into this property. The other is the monument signs. You heard me say at the start, you know, this is, in large part in this area, a gateway to the town, and so we want it to be a place that the signs are acting as wayfinding and welcoming and kind of partner with the town to make a really attractive product right at the front doormat. And then, of course, the sign square footage, which is a slight request from your 48 to your 51. And this is for a variety of reasons. The topo of the site, again, its location, its prominent location along 50, which, of course, is a high-speed state road. So a little bit additional extra square footage there as well. Let me go to the next slide, please.

Yeah, the design. So this is something that's inviting.

The lighting features, you saw some of the water features in this courtyard feel. And not this string of buildings, but something that's inviting, that breaks up the overall project design and allows people to traverse the property and see all the different tenants and enjoy their stay at the town center. Roll to the next slide. So we talked about the signs, and I'm happy to answer specifics on these as well, but the three, I think, are functional as well as attractive. And you see in all of these renderings pretty significant landscaping, and that landscape plan is going to ultimately be a part of the development agreement and the PUD ordinance as well. But focusing on wayfinding functionality and then just being a welcoming signage to the town and to the project as a whole. Yeah, and so we had some great discussion at ARB, a lot of which dealt with just the overall site design and some of the things that I was able to address in this presentation, and then the landscaping. And we have been able to provide additional landscaping specifically where the comment was raised to the educational facility to the north. But the landscaping also really assists in the topo. As you guys know, this is a pretty significant slope here. And so we need to have a retaining wall. We've been working in depth with FDEP and other jurisdictions to achieve this project. And the landscaping serves a functional purpose, but also is really aesthetically pleasing, as you see. Let me go to the next slide. You saw this in staff's presentation, but I think this is helpful in seeing the layout of the signage and how it interacts with the rest of the development. The last slide, which is shown on the corner, that's kind of that welcome to Oakland and the town center specifically. That also has that retaining wall area, so significant landscaping, as well as slightly to the north as well on that additional access point. Go to the next slide. Well, I've hit this in all my previous slides, but again, the pedestrian-oriented design, I think, is one of the main takeaways from here. And we talked a little bit about pedestrian safety in the ARB, site circulation for traffic and for bicycles and how it lays out.

Also, you've heard me say now two or three times that it's not just this big, long wall of traffic.

of bays for tenants. The way that this is laid out also allows for pedestrian safety. So you're breaking up your speeds of vehicles that are within the project as well. So those courtyards, the way the overall design layout is, again, focused on pedestrians, bicycles, and So the landscaping plan, this has been amended slightly to accommodate some of the great comments we received from ARB, add an additional landscaping. This is in addition to the renderings that you've seen to help break up some of the change in elevation as well. With that, we have the whole team here to answer questions. So I do thank you for your time and happy to answer those now, thanks.

i have a few is that okay please okay so um the sign that that you state is going to be on the smaller sign on the corner at the entrance to tractor supply there's already a sign in the median in front of tractor supply and you stated there's or he stated that the sign would be where people driving west

would see it.

What about the people coming east? Is it going to be a vague sign so people going east can also see it on the left?

Yeah, so I think this visual is also helpful up on the screen. The tractor supplies there kind of in the left hand, the blank there. So yes, the way that the smaller sign is laid out, it does face slightly to the east so the people coming west. But it's also in such a way that other people could see it.

Well, I think to answer the heart of your question is the

The middle signage to the south is also in such a way that both sides can see the signage and the tenant offerings that are there.

Okay. And the tenant names, so many of the signs that are around everywhere have those tenant signs, and after a couple of years, they get Incorrect. They don't remove a tenant that's left, or they don't add a new tenant. Are they going to be digital, or will they be manually replaced?

No, these are manual signages, and we're hoping to partner with long-term tenants, so there's not a whole lot of change. But this is something that is attracting a higher class of tenants. And if you'd like, we can kind of speak to some of the tenants that we're attracting to give you a little feel for what's going on.

I'm Alexi Fonseca with Colliers and I have been hired for this property to really bring in a curated mix of tenants to the property and obviously a big part of doing that is place making and a key to that is signage and landscaping. Some of the tenants that we are talking to or we're looking to bring in just to give you an idea We need some great full-service restaurants that anchor this property, especially right at the entrances and the end caps that have those nice big courtyard areas, which we've got 16,000 square feet of amenity space, being green space, hardscape, and outdoor patios. And we're looking to bring in a real curated mix of restaurants. So not your big nationals necessarily. We want something that really is going to feed the town of Oakland, that really has a sense of community. So we are going to target new to market restaurants, but then also some local favorites. So for example, Agave Azul or the Good Salt Group that owns the Monroe and Osprey and Sato Sushi restaurants. So groups like that that are really well known in Orlando, but haven't placed in this market yet. A lot of groups like that and new to market tenants are looking in Winter Garden and Claremont because those have been the bigger markets, but those are at capacity right now. So this is a really great opportunity for Oakland to to come out with a really great project like this and capture some of those that are already looking. Some of the new to market tenants that we're looking at also is like Indigo Restaurant Group that has a big presence. They own Oku Sushi and Indaco Italian up in North Carolina. And we just signed a deal with them in Winter Park. So it's a good opportunity since we're in front of them right now to present a project like this. MoTeC is another one out of South Florida. They do both. breakfast, lunch, and dinner, very, very popular, huge following. Bar Italia's in Winter Park and Tampa, they're another one that's looking for new opportunities. And then, of course, you know, target some of your great coffee shops that really are not just a grab-and-go coffee shop, but a place that is where community can gather and places where people can sit and work for a couple hours. And so, you know, we're talking to Stemma Coffee and Create Coffee, which have a presence in downtown and in Winter Park, but they're looking in Winter Garden, Plant Street, and there's really no space available. So this is a good chance for us to grab some of those. Dessert concepts like May Day Ice Cream and Salt and Straw. And then, you know, of course, some of your other casual dining, you know, Pura Vida, Naked Farmer, are really popular groups as well and then obviously targeting health and wellness health and wellness concepts like solid core and glow 30 berries boot camp, but you know to get some of these tenants signage is super important, especially if they're in the back, so if you're driving at that elevation in front of the property and it's elevated. going down colonial you're not going to see their sign what you will see is that monument signage and those panels so that's super important to even capture any of these tenants one of the first things that they ask us and that they even have to present in real estate committees is what the signage thank you okay thank you just a couple more please the sign that you said would be at the far back building

that would with the building that's facing katherine ross does that completely bump up to the exit from the school is that where the side of that building is going to be right at that exit from school no so the school's further north um the signage the call out there is is for this further south um just to the south of that building that's going to be

on the upper right-hand side of the project. Yes, ma'am.

So, Nancy, if you look at the back of the property on the north of this property is where the lift station is behind the school.

So it's going to be below. It'll be south of the lift station.

It will be south of that.

OK. And what about a potential cell tower? Is that the same area?

That would be in the same area as the lift station, yes.

okay and um we can put a sign on that too if you want and one last thing a very serious touch point right now is bikes and scooters um i think maybe it's too early to talk about this but i just want to say i would like to i would hope that bikes and scooters would not be allowed while people are walking around because it's already out of control right now

yeah so you're right it is important let me touch on it briefly um the scooter topic is a big is a big conversation right now but focus on this site plan specifically I think this image really, really helps. The way that, and you can see some of the areas in which pedestrians cross, crosswalk, safety, those sorts of things. Breaking up this project and these buildings, it's going to naturally slow speeds for vehicles, pedestrians. There are bike racks in here, right? We want people to ride their bikes here. And for that matter, folks are probably going to take the golf carts here too. This is designed to be welcoming from whether you're on foot, on scooter, on a bike, on a golf cart, in the car. And with that in mind, pedestrian safety has been at the forefront. And so while it might be a little soon before we get into fully engineered plans, you can already see some of those items are well-baked into this concept plan, which required to construct off of so i think it's a perfectly valid question and something that's gone into this design and being specific e-bikes and e-scooters i mean every day it's a problem yeah because you know that's what kids are riding okay thank you very much thank you Well, yeah, the hash marks, that's the area that's being proposed for public right-of-way, and I believe any existing easements will need to extinguish in order for it to function as public right. Right now, let's go ahead.

The intent is to extend Sadler all the way down between Catherine Ross and Starr.

I'm sorry one other question access right now that we have that wonderful Katherine Ross Road open now you can get into it from both directions what about what will happen when these other two streets are open I mean especially the middle one will that have any access to go east or not at all hopefully in the future

Yeah, and I think this is a really great opportunity to provide something in that direction, truly meet the town halfway and what we're doing there to the north to provide some east-west access.

So we're hopeful.

Okay.

What's the elevation difference between tractor supply and this development?

Sure, let me bring up the project engineer for that.

Okay, awesome. All of my questions are really for you, so.

Okay. Yeah. Reagan O'Loughlin with Kimmelhorn Associates. The difference between tractor supply and along State Road 50, there's a transition of about four feet from west to east, but it's probably about eight feet.

Between the new development?

Maybe say highest to lowest.

If I'm going east on this new Saddler extension, is it going to slope down or is it going to slope up?

It's going to slope up. Okay. Yeah, tractor supply is higher by eight to 10 feet, 10 feet in the lowest places of the development, which is kind of the southeast corner of what Pond is.

What's your proposed elevation of the retaining wall? How high from curb, basically?

We'll say from street level, it ranges from about four to eight, nine feet.

Okay, so that's gonna require fencing at the top?

likely yes sort of pedestrian incorporated yeah pedestrian railing safety railing the signs are 12 foot high

And really at the middle there, right at the new access, the wall goes pretty much almost to 10. And it sort of just tapers down as we go both directions. corner sign is 12 as well so we made it that was the maximum allowed so we made them at 12 um and mainly because 50 as you know it's a what six or eight lane highway i think there um and then to you know the nice lady's point we wanted it to be visible from both sides as well so uh and then of course on katherine ross we think that most people that live in oakland are going to access that site through katherine ross so we wanted you to have the same way finding and uh And if you look at, we take a lot of pride in what we do, so we wanted those signs to be integrated, not just like a detached portion. So we wanted to put just some architectural beauty in them, if you want to call it that.

And you said there would be two access points on Catherine Ross into Oakland Town Center.

Yes, ma'am, but the monument is only at the lower side, which would be probably about 250 feet, I think, or so from the school, maybe a little bit more. So yeah, the other one's just directly behind over there on the new rug we're dedicating to you.

You have four dumpster enclosures? It's for him. It looks like four dumpster enclosures?

Correct.

Okay.

They're all double-ups.

They're double-ups? Yeah. I don't know. It just seems to me like you're going to need another one because of the bigger building.

Oh, no. One, two, three, four, six. Apologies. I'm not the engineer of record. I'm standing in for him.

I can kind of touch on that point too, just as a point of clarification. Through this preliminary site plan, this is only a stage one of the review sequence. Right now we're reviewing, considering the idea, the layout, the proposal of the bird's eye view of the project, but as has been touched on previously, there is still another layer, the final engineering review, at which point that's when us as the town review team make sure that it works, that the engineering is correct, As you mentioned things such as the dumpster enclosures are hammered out and at that point, you know outside entities such as Water Management District Orange County fire. They also have a chance to lay eyes on it to make sure that all the Standards beyond what we're just looking at here tonight are reviewed and are compliant Just a I mean since we brought it up or is there any plan for golf cart parking specifically golf cart parking

We have discussed it.

You know, it's funny. We thought it was a great idea. We got a little bit of pushback from different folks saying that you can use a parking space and you can put two golf carts in it. We're open to that. If the town thinks you guys need golf cart parking, I mean, we're totally open to that. It's not something that...

I'm not going to ask you to do it. I just think that, like, when you're driving through downtown Winter Garden and you... give a person a choice. They're not going to park to one side to allow another golf cart to park there.

Got it. They'll take the whole spot.

They're going to take the whole spot. And then moreover, the frustrated person who's driving a car who thinks that that space is open, they're going to pull up and realize there's a golf cart there. So it, I'm just saying, I think it'd be cool.

Let me ask you this just for some feedback. How many spots do you think the town would need for something like this?

I'm not going to tell you how many. I just know that downtown Winter Garden, they have on the side of that historic building right by the –

splash pad they've got about 10 or 15 spots that are there everybody knows their golf cart parking spots and people go in and it's adequate you feel it's lazy okay it's lazy i do yeah i think that's easy to do so we can absolutely yeah do something like that we talked about doing it originally we thought it was a great idea and then somewhere along the line someone was like well it's not a great idea they'll use it anyway but yeah that makes sense so we'll add that

Again, I'm not asking.

No, no, I know. I know we weren't asked to do the plants the other day either, but we really want to be, we want to be received warmly in the town. We realize this is a joint project and we want to do something that we're proud of, but you guys are proud of that. Everybody here is proud of it, that we can all, you know, be excited about and congregate and all that good stuff.

So, I mean, understanding that like best case scenario, get approval and, you know, six to eight months for plans and then permitting. I mean, when do you foresee in a perfect world, you know?

Man, let's get through this. You know, let's get through this. I think once we're through this, we can move pretty fast. We've got a lot of interest in the space. People, I think Alexi pointed it out best, You know, we're trying to build a mini winter park here, a mini winter garden here. That's kind of the goal here, right? We're trying to bring those types of tenants into Oakland Town Center. And we have interest right now. We have a lot of interest. So we want to take advantage of that interest while we have it. and see if we can bring everything together at one time. Because it does take a bit of economies of scale here. To get some of these tenants, you need other tenants, and you kind of bring everybody together. And if they're there, then they'll be there, and then he'll be there.

You need one anchor tenant, one killer anchor tenant, and everybody will want to come.

Yeah, fair enough. And I think in normal shopping centers, that's accurate. But this one doesn't have a big anchor. It's not huge like it has a Publix or a Trader Joe's, right? So we're dealing with smaller tenant footprints. And so it's going to take maybe a couple of really good restaurants or something like this. But yes.

One thing, too, you mentioned earlier when we were talking about bikes and scooters, you had already thought about putting in bike racks in some place. Maybe there's a way to have the golf cart parking and bike racks, if you decide to do that, somehow look attractive in a certain area.

Well, whatever we do, we'll make sure it's attractive. Yeah, I promise you, we want this to be a very attractive place. The tenants that we're talking to expect us to be attractive. I mean, we want this to be a place where people come on the weekends and during the week and walk around and enjoy and have lunch or have a coffee or enjoy and feel safe and feel secure. Yeah.

Do any other members have any additional questions? Okay. At this point, I will open it up to the public for any comment. Thanks, Paul. Thank you. Is there anyone present that would like to speak on this item? Hearing none, seeing none, I'll close the public forum. Does anybody else have any comments? Okay. Can I have a motion, please?

i'm the motion person um i make a motion that for an approval of the or is it ordinance town center ordinance 26-05 on its first reading is that right it would be it would be a motion to recommend to the town commission to adopt ordinance number 2026 that we recommend to the town commission to adopt oakland town center ordinance 26-05 as presented Second it.

All in favor? Aye. That's it. With that, we will adjourn the meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. Nice to meet you too.

Now.