WINTER PARK, Fla. – It has been almost 30 years since Winter Park’s Park Avenue has seen a refresh, but the city plans to change that.
On Thursday, a presentation revealed the city plans to enhance safety, improve infrastructure and provide a consistent look along downtown.
“This is not a renovation — Park Avenue does not need to be renovated, it is our crown jewel,” Communications Director Clarissa Howard said.
This will be done in phases, with the first one starting along Fairbanks to Lyman, according to city documents.
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The overall revamp project stretches down to Whipple Avenue. A Winter Park-based group, Stringfellow Planning & Design, is behind this project.
Installing a new “City of Winter Park” sign, eliminating some streetlights and replacing landscaping will be done in this first phase, documents show.
“We think we can learn a lot from making a smaller, shorter first phase. We think it is an appropriate size in terms of impacts of businesses along the avenue as well. It’s easier to communicate with business interruption and those types of things that may go along with construction,” a representative from Stringfellow said.
The goal is to have phase one construction started by April and finished by September, a representative from Stringfellow said during the meeting, but the timeline may change.
The overall cost of this refresh is not known at this time, but the city has $1 million allocated for the project, a city official said during the meeting. The money is from Community Redevelopment Agency funds.
Meanwhile, the issue of finding parking along this hot spot of town is being partially addressed by the addition of more street parking spots through this project.
However, city officials said this may not be enough and will consider adding a two-story parking garage as part of a potential future project.
“Perhaps we need to explore also doing a parking garage (...) but maybe that’s something we could do because we are going need more parking, and that’s just a constant problem and I don’t know if we will get enough by just putting some more on the street,” Mayor Sheila DeCiccio said.
To check out the full plans for the revamp of Park Avenue, click here.
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