Interesting....
QuoteDowntown Orlando is about to get hundreds of new residents, a performing-arts center and two commuter-rail stops â€" but a new group of business leaders wants more.
Orlando 2.0, as it's being called, includes a small group of relatively young entrepreneurs and professionals. Their goal: Transform downtown from an after-dark scene for partiers, parking tickets and panhandlers into a place for shopping, dining, higher education and entertainment.
Commercial real-estate broker Billy Bishop, part of the 2.0 group, said he would like to see downtown become attractive to business clients, tourists and others who now go elsewhere for entertainment.
"It would be very hard for my wife and me to get together and say: 'Hey, let's go downtown,''' Bishop said.
Members point to the downtown areas of Asheville, N.C.; San Antonio, Texas; Charleston, S.C.; Denver; and Austin, Texas, as examples that draw people who live outside them. Some planners cite Winter Park's Park Avenue as a local example of that dynamic.
One of the first things the self-funded group hopes to do is work with the city and request urban designers to submit plans and concepts for what downtown could evolve into.
full article: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-downtown-orlando-group-20130127,0,3447083.story
I'm so jealous of Orlando right now.... (didn't think I would EVER say that).
It is interesting that the article states that retail follows rooftops.
There hasn't really been a significant explosion in population in these areas over the last decade. Outside of San Marco and Downtown, the population has actually declined. I do believe that retail follows rooftops but I'd make an argument that the rooftops are already there in downtown and the urban core. There's over 100,000 now. How many more people do we want before we can claim roof tops exist. Also, this idea of the Northbank needing 10,000 or even 5,000 residents for retail to flourish isn't based on reality or local history. The Northbank core has more people living it today than it has in 100 years. However, 10,000 people won't support 25% of the retail that was there as late as the 1980s.
I think one major problem is people tend to throw all retail categories into one bag when retail demographics and types of retail are actually as diversified as housing stock can be. The market for many of the types of anchor retail uses at SJTC and Avenues died in downtown decades ago. On the other hand, local specialty retail is starting to flourish in the urban core while its being replaced in suburban strip malls with doctor's offices, storefront churches and service oriented businesses. There was an article in the FTU about this yesterday.
Stephen hits on an important second issue. You can limit retail opportunities in a place where residents are within close proximity by simply creating a hostile environment for small business. I'd say, our downtown suffers greatly from this.
Riverside and San Marco seem to have significantly progressed over the last decade.