The 22 acre Winter Park Center at 501 N. Orlando Ave, commonly known as the Kmart shopping center, is getting a complete overhaul by SVAP Winter Park, L. P., the owners. The City of Winter Park Planning and Zoning Board approved the plan unanimously with some provisions.
Below are details of the renovation:
- 10,000 sq ft of new retail will be created in the spot formerly used as the KMart garden shop
- Two mature oak trees will be lost due to a new parking lot reconfiguration which gives a new north/south travel route from Webster Avenue down to Gay Road. P&Z must review and approve the final design of the landscape plan and will try to save the trees.
- The new sign on Orlando Ave will be 28 ft tall and 500 sq ft in size. The new sign on Lee Road will remain in the same location and retain the same size. P&Z must review and approve the the final design of the Orlando Ave sign.
- The city will raise the parking deficit from 3% to 5% if the developers will provide more “Winter Park” character. This would include enhanced pedestrian circulation, landscaping and storm water retention. P&Z must review and approve the the final design.
- The existing buildings' 258,885 sq ft will be reduced by by 14,659 sq ft
- Major building facade renovations to entire shopping center
- Upgrades to the parking lot
- Add 47 parking spaces by reducing the depth of the retail store bays from LA Fitness south to Office Depot
- 1,048 total parking spaces
- Retrofit of the southern parking field to conform to current landscape standards.
- Storm water retention will be a major issue. It wasn't required in 1964 when the center was originally built. In 1990, a soils report showed the center had "mucky soils with very high ground water table."
New signage will be constructed at the same two locations as the existing signage:
- The Lee Road signage would remain at the existing 145 square feet which is larger than the Code limits of 100 square feet per sign. However, given that this property has 660 feet of frontage on Lee Road technically, for each 300 feet the shopping center is allowed a 100 square foot ID sign.
- The Orlando Avenue location is grandfathered-in with two existing pylon signs of 278 square feet total. Those signs were approved in 1990 in recognition that the K-Mart Shopping Center is 22 acres with limited frontage on Orlando Avenue and needed special consideration given the previous movie theatre and major retailers. The same scenario exists today with major retailers needing some ID signage on Orlando Avenue. The proposal is asking to rebuild the existing 280 square feet of signage into one structure but the combination of adding the base and other elements to the sign make it 28 feet tall and about 500 square feet in size for the entire structure.
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