WINTER GARDEN, Fla. \u2014 Winter Garden city leaders have approved additional building plans, clearing the way to transform a former citrus packing plant into a neighborhood-oriented market called the \u201cOld Packing House.\u201d<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
City leaders approve expanded building plans for historic citrus packing house
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Mixed-use market will feature shops, eateries, offices, and a museum
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Developer emphasizes preserving history while creating a community hub
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Leasing expected to begin later this summer<\/p>\n
Developer Gary Hasson says the project has been years in the making.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you can see, we\u2019ve got a lot of stuff going on over here,\u201d Hasson said while touring the property with his son.<\/p>\n
The 1909 packing house spans 52,000 square feet \u2014 \u201cjust over the size of a football field,\u201d he added \u2014 and sits among five buildings spread across four acres.<\/p>\n
The space is being reimagined as a place where people can work, eat, and shop.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have people with offices up on the top here. We have eateries and stores down at the bottom. A marketplace over here, along with the Natural History Museum,\u201d Hasson said.<\/p>\n
Project renderings have been shared at several community meetings, where residents voiced concerns about traffic and congestion.<\/p>\n
The property sits next to the West Orange Trail, a well-used recreational corridor.<\/p>\n
John Russo of Mount Dora, who has walked the trail for two decades, supports the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think bringing together like people in a mixed-use space will create more of like a social aspect to the community,\u201d Russo said.<\/p>\n
Hasson says preserving the site\u2019s history is central to the redevelopment.<\/p>\n
The packing house dates back to the early 1900s, when Winter Garden played a key role in the citrus industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cCitrus would come in here, they would pack it and then put it on trains that were shipped all over the country and overseas,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Purchased five years ago, the property will feature original citrus packing label artwork displayed on the exterior.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to be putting these kind of beautiful artistic signs all around the building,\u201d Hasson said.<\/p>\n
Developers expect to begin signing leases by August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WINTER GARDEN, Fla. \u2014 Winter Garden city leaders have approved additional building plans, clearing the way to transform…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[767,2031,274,558,770,115,1335,139,141,140,11881,278,14104,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-129786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-app-community","9":"tag-app-local-business","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-community-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-orange-county","15":"tag-orlando","16":"tag-orlando-headlines","17":"tag-orlando-news","18":"tag-randy-rauch","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topic-latest-local-business-stories","21":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}