Photo Credit Google Maps
***Opinion***
Adam Wonus, the Millenial developer who recently garnered local notoriety for crashing his thoughtlessly-designed, front-loading duplexes into a (not officially designated by City of Orlando) historic district, was interviewed this week by WMFE Orlando, the city's local NPR affiliate.
The interview was rambling and self serving, with sentences at times trailing off into separate unrelated thoughts. For example:
The interview did not begin by mentioning why it was taking place: the bleak Orlando Sentinel article, our own eye-opening (we hope) article, the negative Facebook comments left everywhere and the overall awful feedback from practically everyone interested. Instead, the interview existed in a floating aura of a pleasant developer-friendly vacuum: Wonus jammed about his ill-conceived duplexes to the radio protest of none.
Wonus explains the goal of his project:
As for the look of his projects, which are front-loading, far-set-back suburban duplexes with front yards covered in driveway, he Ryan-Lochtes the duplexes' clear disdain for the older homes to the left and right of them saying,
The City of Orlando has worked with Wonus on his duplex projects. The design is so poor, he says, "They want us to change the face of some of those buildings."
The issue of poorly designed duplexes has become such a hot-button issue with downtown dwellers that the City is hosting a public meeting at which they can voice their concern. Read about that here.
There's also a group discussion being put on by Rethinking the City. Read about that here.
Wonus places the burden of making improvements at the feet of others:
He also wants others to fix his tree problem, the problem being his duplexes don't have them. They all resulted in downed mature trees and one lone palm tree in the center landscaping pit that separates the two entrances. As for the trees,
The interview was rambling and self serving, with sentences at times trailing off into separate unrelated thoughts. For example:
"This is not a project for Adam Wonus to go in and change the Milk District. This is a project for the citizens of Orlando that love the Milk District to now come in and take what we've started..."Wha?
The interview did not begin by mentioning why it was taking place: the bleak Orlando Sentinel article, our own eye-opening (we hope) article, the negative Facebook comments left everywhere and the overall awful feedback from practically everyone interested. Instead, the interview existed in a floating aura of a pleasant developer-friendly vacuum: Wonus jammed about his ill-conceived duplexes to the radio protest of none.
Wonus explains the goal of his project:
"My goal was simply to take vacant lots and run down homes and put something new in its place."That explains a lot.
As for the look of his projects, which are front-loading, far-set-back suburban duplexes with front yards covered in driveway, he Ryan-Lochtes the duplexes' clear disdain for the older homes to the left and right of them saying,
"I totally understand. I don't have the best plan for everything. It's not something where I said 'This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."He's the developer and he admits he's constructing buildings even he doesn't like!
The City of Orlando has worked with Wonus on his duplex projects. The design is so poor, he says, "They want us to change the face of some of those buildings."
The issue of poorly designed duplexes has become such a hot-button issue with downtown dwellers that the City is hosting a public meeting at which they can voice their concern. Read about that here.
There's also a group discussion being put on by Rethinking the City. Read about that here.
Wonus places the burden of making improvements at the feet of others:
"If there are people with ideas of what they want it to be I'd love and welcome them to reach out to me and let's do this together. This isn't an Adam Wonus' project."Yes, yes this is an Adam Wonus project. It's got Wonus all over it. He screwed up, he was called out in local media, he went onto WMFE to explain his side the story because the blowback was so monstrous, and he wants others to fix it for him. #wonustown
He also wants others to fix his tree problem, the problem being his duplexes don't have them. They all resulted in downed mature trees and one lone palm tree in the center landscaping pit that separates the two entrances. As for the trees,
"We go by with what the city asks us to do. I would love to do more. If people can come together and come with me to put something together to put more trees I'm all for it."Wonus finished the ramble-thon by explaining why all his duplexes are rentals:
"The reason that they're rentals right now is because.. to be honest I love yards... I love nice yards... I spend a lot of money to make sure my grass is green... so when people ask me Adam why are you holding these... it's important to me that when new homeowners are coming in, they look across the street and say 'Hey that yard is taken care of and that yard is in excellent shape. This would be a good place for me to buy a home and fix it up as well.... so the point behind keeping and holding these properties is to help the area maintain the level that I would like it to have as far as from a yard appearance. Trees..."