Boom times in Downtown Orlando

Many cities have struggled with the revitalization of their urban cores. Orlando isn't one of them. A sleepy central business district twenty years ago continues its radical transformation into an up and coming vibrant pedestrian friendly destination. Much of this success is due to the concept of clustering, complementing development together within a compact pedestrian scale setting. For sunbelt cities struggling to understand that concept, here's a collection of mid-week evening photographs illustrating what it looks like visually.

1. Cranes dominate the Orlando skyline at the intersection of South Street and Rosalind Avenue.

2. The Yard at Ivanhoe Village will include hundreds of apartments and 31,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space.

3. New mixed-use buildings now line blocks of North Orange Avenue where surface parking and vacant lots once stood.

4. Amelia Court is a new $60 million, 256-unit multi-family housing development under construction at Creative Village.

5. UnionWest is a 15-story mixed-use student housing building currently under construction at Creative Village. The development will contain 600 student housing beds; 105,000 square feet of academic and education support space leased to University of Central Florida (UCF) and Valencia College; ground floor restaurant/commercial space; and an integrated parking garage. The project is anticipated to be completed in August 2019 concurrent with the opening of the UCF/Valencia Downtown Campus at Creative Village.

6. The Dr. Phillips Academic Commons will be a central destination of a joint college campus in Downtown Orlando that will serve 7,700 students from UCF and Valencia College when it opens in August 2019.

7. Orange Avenue is the epicenter of Downtown Orlando’s continued revitalization efforts.

8. Traveling south down Orange Avenue at Central Boulevard.

9. NOVEL Lucerne is a 375 apartment project being developed at the intersection of Orange Avenue and Gore streets.

10. All-natural grocer Earth Fare will open a new location on the ground level of NOVEL Lucerne in late March 2019.