Creative Village

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SPONSOR A STUDENT SECTIONS GIVE DIGITAL ACCESS Where do students of new UCF/Valencia campus live? Mostly not downtown. By ANNIE MARTIN ORLANDO SENTINEL | AUG 02, 2019

The University of Central Florida and Valencia College students who are to attend the new downtown campus that opens Aug. 26 will largely come from areas outside the downtown core, numbers from the institutions show. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda / Orlando Sentinel)

The new downtown University of Central Florida and Valencia College campus, a centerpiece of the Creative Village, has been touted as a key part of the city’s revitalization efforts and a source of new opportunities for residents of Parramore and the surrounding areas.

But the students who will attend the new campus this fall largely are coming from outlying areas, including Winter Garden, Oviedo and east Orange County, according to an Orlando Sentinel analysis of preliminary numbers from the University of Central Florida and Valencia. Nearly 7,000 students, the majority in their late teens or 20s, have signed up for classes at the new campus, which is slated to open Aug. 26. Registration at both schools is still ongoing, but the data provides an early look at the students who will be the first to attend the campus that’s been in the works for years and first announced in 2014.

The complex features a 15-story building that will include a 600-bed dorm, as well as classrooms and Valencia’s culinary arts and hospitality programs. Across Livingston Street is the new Dr. Phillips Academic Commons, which is slated to have more classrooms, a library and space for studying and tutoring. Aside from degree programs, Valencia will offer shorter term training opportunities in areas like construction and manufacturing. The new campus is part of the 68-acre Creative Village, which also will have offices and mixed-income housing.

Both institutions say they hope the new campus will open doors to people who live in Parramore and the surrounding areas, where people are less likely to have college degrees than in other parts of Central Florida.

“Over time, we believe we will see larger and larger numbers of students who actually live in Parramore choosing to enroll in the university,” said Gordon Chavis, the associate vice president for enrollment services at UCF.

The ZIP codes provided by the university represent addresses provided by students, which could be their families’ home addresses or apartments they’ve rented on their own.

The largest share of those enrolled at the new downtown campus, 194 people or 2.8 percent, lives in the 32817 ZIP code, which takes in the neighborhood that includes a lot of student apartments just to the west of UCF’s main campus.

Of the UCF and Valencia students who have enrolled at the new campus, 91 of them, or 1.3 percent, listed addresses in the 32801 or 32805 ZIP codes, which include the core downtown area, as well as the Parramore neighborhood and surrounding areas. The new campus is on the western edge of the 32801 area. “We’re not surprised that there aren’t a lot of students who have moved down there the very first instant that it’s open,” said Pamela Carroll, the dean of UCF’s College of Community Innovation and Education, which is anchoring the downtown campus.

But Carroll and Falecia Williams, the president of Valencia’s west campus, are hopeful that will change, pointing to efforts by both institutions to draw students in.

“I do believe over time that is going to increase — the percentage of individuals who might not have done anything will take advantage of the degree programs there as well as the short-term training programs there,” Williams said.

Construction continued on Aug. 2 for the new downtown campus for the University of Central Florida and Valencia College. (Annie Martin) At just more than 22,000 residents, the population of the 32805 zip code is smaller than others in Central Florida. But just 21 percent of people age 25 and older in that area have an associates degree or higher, compared with 42.4 percent of Orange County residents, according to data from the U.S. Census.

However, UCF is already working with schools and other community organizations in Parramore and adjacent neighborhoods, Carroll said. Students and faculty provide homework help and dinner to students and parents at the OCPS Academic Center for Excellence, which is just across Parramore Avenue from the new campus. They’ve also provided vision, hearing, dental and language testing for children at the nearby Callahan Neighborhood Center. And they’ve secured grant funding that will help adults in the community earn their GEDs and industry certifications, she said.

At Valencia, the number of people from the 32805 ZIP code taking for-credit courses at Valencia has increased by about 20 percent over the past year. Valencia staff has visited Jones High School, where most of the students from the 32805 ZIP code attend, several times over the past year, doing a “teach-in” so students could experience a lectures from college instructors and even attending football games. More than 200 Jones graduates have enrolled in Valencia courses this fall.

But for now, areas of Seminole County bordering the main campus, as well as Avalon Park and other parts of east Orange County likely will be better represented at the new campus. Another 115 students will travel from the ZIP code that includes Horizons West and downtown Winter Garden.

And long-standing concerns about gentrification in Parramore and the surrounding areas remain, said Cynthia Harris, who has served on Valencia’s Black Advisory Committee. The 32805 ZIP code has lost more than 2,000 residents since 2000, data from the U.S. Census shows. Rising rents have forced out families who used to live in neighborhoods like Parramore, Harris said. One reason why few students with home addresses in 32805 are enrolled at the main campus may be that their families have moved elsewhere, she said, and they’ll likely be replaced by people with higher salaries. “Those are the people who can afford to live there, and those people will eventually go to that school,” she said. “But it puts the people that are already here at a disadvantage.”

That’s a concern any time you see changes in an urban area, Carroll said, but the university is working to provide rent-controlled properties, as well as academic opportunities to residents. Additionally, an apartment complex just to the north of the new campus will offer discounted rent to low-income residents and is not geared toward students.

“The way I will define success for the downtown campus is we will work with the community and 20 years from now, we will see that those legacy residents have what they define as a better life in Parramore and we will have new residents added to Parramore,” Carroll said.

[email protected] or 407-420-5120

Annie Martin Orlando Sentinel

Annie Martin covers higher education. A Washington state native, Annie graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She previously worked for the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the Battle Creek Enquirer in Michigan. Annie is an avid runner and reader. She loves exploring all of Florida’s natural wonders.

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ORANGE COUNTY NEWS

Creative Village: UCF-Valencia campus expected to be hottest area for downtown Orlando growth

By RYAN GILLESPIE ORLANDO SENTINEL | AUG 07, 2019

When the old Amway Arena, site of the Orlando Magic’s glory days, was demolished in 2012, the area around it became a blank slate for city planners who dreamed big about what could come next.

Long before the arena was history, officials relished the opportunity to reshape 68 acres it controlled in its downtown core. With help from a task force, they settled on a “village” concept with an education hub that could attract high-wage digital media jobs downtown, with the prospect of spurring a bounty of new development as it grows.

This month, the area west of Interstate 4 will spring to life as college students begin attending classes at a joint UCF and Valencia downtown campus on the same land where Shaq and Penny wowed Magic fans.

Welcome to Creative Village.

“You can’t really see it from I-4, not that many people drive on Parramore [Avenue], so a lot of people are going to think ‘wow that happened overnight?’” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said. “And really, it didn’t happen overnight — it happened over a period of 15 years.” City Hall estimates more than $1.5 billion in development could eventually come into the neighborhood, with the long-term vision of developing a kindergarten to post-graduate educational pipeline within walking distance to thousands of homes and a thriving employment center.

The vision: Reshaping the landscape

The campus is scheduled to open Aug. 26, bringing 7,600 students — about the size of Stetson University and Rollins College combined — plus hundreds more staffers and faculty members to the area. So far about 7,000 have enrolled, with about 300 faculty and staff planned to work there, said Heather Smith, a UCF spokeswoman.

The campus is spread across two buildings and includes more than 600 dorms for students, with plans for more housing as the campus grows as the result of a public/private partnership. It’s between Livingston Street to the north, train tracks to the south, Parramore Avenue to the west and Hughey Avenue to the east.

The most visible building in Creative Village is UnionWest, a 15-story tower built by developer Craig Ustler. It has five stories of classrooms and commercial kitchen space for Valencia’s culinary arts program, named the Walt Disney World Center for Culinary Arts and Hospitality. Above it are 10 stories of student housing, with furnished dorms and refrigerators underneath beds, Dyer said. At 202 feet tall, it’s also the tallest downtown building built west of Interstate 4. Thus far 563 students have registered to live there, which is about 90% capacity, Smith said.

The ground floor includes restaurants open to the public, including Dunkin’, Qdoba Mexican Eats and Subway, as well as an Addition Financial.

The new campus also includes the Dr. Phillips Academic Commons, which has four stories of classrooms, library space and offices.

It’ll be a stark transformation from the days after the Magic moved to the new state-of-the-art Amway Center in 2010. The Dr. Phillips Academic Commons building at Creative Village, photographed Thursday, July 25, 2019. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda / Orlando Sentinel)

“The entire area, since we imploded the arena … has been almost devoid of human activity,” said Thomas Chatmon, the Orlando Downtown Development Board’s executive director. “When you go in and activate it, you really have to prepare it.”

That preparation has included extending Livingston and Amelia streets, adding bus routes and hundreds of parking spaces and improvements such as sidewalks, beacon-style streetlights and landscaping, said Kelly Roberts, the city’s project manager for Creative Village. Soon the plaza outside Bob Carr Theater will be redone to match Creative Village as well.

This first phase includes $625 million of development, with close to 1,000 apartments and 2,100 new residents by 2021, according to a city presentation.

Already, 2566 units of workforce housing have opened in the area and will be at capacity by the time the campus opens. The mostly three-bedroom units are pegged for families in what’s considered a mixed-income development — 1777 units are set aside for renters making less than the area’s median household income of$48,600 a year. Next summer, Creative Village will grow by another 409 apartments. The ground floor will open up into a front-porch-like view of what’s dubbed Central Park — a 2.5-acre public park with a lawn, promenade, bandshell and seating space also due to open next summer.

When built out in the next 12 years, Creative Village will have 1.2 million square feet of office space, 750,000 square feet for higher education, 150,000 square feet of commercial and retail space, 1,500 residential units and 1,500 student housing beds, said Cassandra Lafser, a spokeswoman for Dyer.

In the final sprint to the first day of classes, more than 100 City Hall staffers are working toward making the opening a smooth one.

“We’re one of the few bigger cities that didn’t have a real university presence in the downtown,” Dyer said. “I think this is going to bring some vibrancy … but again UCF and Valencia are part of a bigger picture here in the Creative Village.”

Construction is underway on Aug. 2, 2019, on the I-4 underpass on Livingston Street, looking from North Garland Avenue to the west (North Hughey Avenue) and the Creative Village. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda / Orlando Sentinel) Safety: How the campus will be secured

Creative Village’s population, which will grow in coming years as more development comes online, means new customers for downtown businesses, restaurants and bars.

A younger population could also mean increased riders for the city’s free LYMMO circulator buses — UCF and Valencia students get free Lynx bus passes for the entire busing network — as well as more bicycles and pedestrians. Also, the campus is a few minutes walk from a SunRail station, which students, faculty and staff will be able to ride for free in August and September, the school announced. Smith said about 700 have signed up already.

The anticipated heavy flow of students and Creative Village residents walking to downtown bars and restaurants increases the significance of the underpasses at Amelia and Livingston streets between Hughey and Garland avenues.

“Now they become extremely important because that will be the portal through which most pedestrians will travel from the Creative Village to the central business district,” Chatmon said.

Measures to ensure safety include the addition of lighting underneath the underpasses and having security guards in place from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Chatmon said. The area also will be frequented daily by the city’s downtown “clean team” to pick up litter.

And downtown “ambassadors,” whose duties include offering safety escorts and providing directions, will add Creative Village to their daily routes throughout downtown.

Currently, the underpasses are frequented by homeless people seeking shade and shelter from storms — but city officials suspect the added foot traffic may make that area less desirable for the homeless.

UCF beefed up its police force, hiring a dozen officers to patrol downtown. The Orlando Police Department didn’t add new officers although Creative Village will benefit from previous steps.

In 20188, OPD reinstated its 155-officer Parramore bike unit with a 3.55 million federal grant. Its members will include Creative Village in their patrols. And earlier this year Police Chief Orlando Rolon shifted the department’s patrol operation, putting more cops on the road during the busiest hours.

After a recent emergency operations drill centered around a mock mass protest at the new campus, Rolon talked about his agency’s response to Creative Village. He said OPD is “very mindful that we’re going to have a presence in that area that doesn’t currently have a lot of people walking through, so officers are already aware of the fact that we will increase our presence in the area as a result of those students and faculty coming onboard.”

The drill involved a slew of entities — including OPD, UCF Police, Orlando Fire, City Hall, Valencia, UCF and Orange County Public Schools — in a demonstration of cooperation officials say is crucial to protect the safety of everyone. In carving up the primary duties, UCF will have jurisdiction at 11 places including academic buildings, garages and other spaces mainly south of Livingston Street, while OPD will cover streets and the remainder of the village. The agencies also will have shared radio channels to communicate and be able to use their radio systems deep inside buildings.

Interim Fire Chief Rich Wales said Fire Station 1 on Central Boulevard and Fire Station 2 on Robinson Street will serve the campus. About 140 firefighters and paramedics have trained in the new buildings so that in an emergency situation they’ll have familiarity with the complex building. Also, the fire department will train dorm resident assistants in performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

The city is also on the verge of rolling out a new state-of-the-art computer-aided design system, which would allow blueprints and floorplans to be readily available to assist first responders.

In another effort, UCF police will expand a program started at the main campus by installing license-plate readers at the Centroplex parking garage it leased from the city as well as the two new garages being built, department spokeswoman Courtney Gilmartin said. The university began using the readers at entrances and exits to its main campus in June and will check readings against law-enforcement databases.

The university is also installing its Blue Light Emergency Phones, which connect a caller directly to police dispatchers. A map of parking options in the Creative Village. (City of Orlando) Parking: Hundreds of spaces added With thousands of people coming to Creative Village to live and work, Orlando’s transportation department will use the area as a proving ground of sorts for meterless paid parking. Drivers won’t pick a specific spot. Like many cities around the country, about 200 on-street parking spots will be divided into zones. Motorists will be able to pay for the parking spot in a particular zone on the Park Mobile application, which is already in service for the city’s existing metered spots downtown.

This change is a one-year pilot project that, if deemed a success, could be rolled out across downtown later.

The City Council next week will consider expanding the boundaries of its parking enforcement to include the village, and expand paid parking hours by three hours there, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., a change from the current 6 p.m. cutoff, to accommodate night classes.

“We think it will help reduce congestion because we won’t have people hunting for free parking in that area,” said Scott Zollars, Orlando’s Parking Division manager.

Orlando also will take control of surface parking lots on Livingston and Concord streets, adding about 300 more spaces.

UCF will also have two parking garages — one it’s building south of UnionWest and the CentroPlex garage it leased from the city near Bob Carr Theater.

The future: Ripe for more development For the city’s vision to come to life, it will need to be able to lure high-wage jobs to the village. Dyer said there’s been “good talks” with companies he said he couldn’t name publicly.

In his annual State of the City speech in June, the mayor offered a pitch to companies and workers who may be leaving Silicon Valley to consider Orlando, where the cost of living — while climbing — is far lower than the Bay area.

Specifically, Dyer said the city was looking at video-game designers, who could build on the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy already based in the village, and other high-wage digital media jobs. “The advantage we have, and we’ll start pitching when the university is fully here, is the talent pool that we’ll have right here on-site and the synergy that can be created interacting in that campus atmosphere,” Dyer said. “We’d like to lure game makers and industries that are focused in that general area.

"We don’t want law firms and somebody that can be in any building downtown. We want to try to attract companies that would benefit from being in that environment.”

Central Florida, anchored by a low-wage tourism-based economy that ranks last among big cities in hourly pay, could use a boost. Digital media jobs pay median wages double, triple and sometimes even more than the region’s annual $33,150 salary, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

In 2007, when first presented the Creative Village concept, city leaders said they wanted to see game developer Electronic Arts, which has an office in Maitland, downtown. Asked if the Madden NFL series developer was considering a move, EA Chief Operating Officer Daryl Holt, who is based in Central Florida, said “we are in the midst of real estate planning, but we’re not making any announcements about those plans today.”

Looking ahead, 2021 will bring another 292 apartments developed by Mill Creek Residential if the deal closes later this year, under Creative Village’s plan. Those market-rate units will be east of the park.

Future development includes two lots for high rises, another dedicated to workforce housing as well as some other lots along Amelia Street that could be used for more office or residential space.

Some properties will remain unsold for the time being by design, Roberts said. Orlando’s financial model requires at least $90 million made from land sales, and the city plans to be patient and wait for the opening of the campus and other construction to drive up property values. To date, the four parcels sold and one under contract would net the city $18 million, Lafser said.

The college campus and apartments already in place are only the beginning for Creative Village, Chatmon said.

“Over the next 10-15 years, it will dominate the development profile of downtown,” he said. “That’s going to be some of the hottest action in downtown now.”

Marco Santana of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated how many parking garages UCF will have.

Have a news tip? You can call Ryan at 407-420-5002, email him at [email protected], follow him on Twitter @byryangillespie and like his coverage on Facebook @byryangillespie.

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SPONSOR A STUDENT SECTIONS GIVE DIGITAL ACCESS

Orlando’s Creative Village could spark growth in video gaming companies

By MARCO SANTANA ORLANDO SENTINEL | AUG 12, 2019

Left to Right, UnionWest and the Parcel M Apartment buildings in Creative Village on Thursday, July 25, 2019. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda / Orlando Sentinel)

A push for high-wage digital media jobs at Creative Village in downtown Orlando has some video game industry leaders dreaming big and wondering aloud what it would be like to lure top studios to Central Florida.

Leaders of the region’s largest game maker Electronic Arts said last week the company is in the “midst of real estate planning” after being asked about Creative Village. While details on which companies might either move to Orlando or open a satellite office remain scarce, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer last month said the industry is one of the top targets for the quickly emerging community.

Nearby, the city already has one of the highest-rated video game schools in the country: UCF’s Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy. FIEA has produced more than 700 graduates in video game development since its 2005 debut.

UCF’s new downtown campus is a key part of Creative Village, and classes are set to open later this month.

Adding top studios could create a cluster of potential employers for students in the area, FIEA Executive Director Ben Noel said.

The result would be more graduates staying in the area to help grow its video game industry in what are typically high-wage jobs.

“The more of those you have around you, the more places you have for your people to go,” he said. “This would create more recurring opportunities for our students, and we are only as good as where our students go.”

City leaders have been planning for years the arrival of Creative Village, which will accommodate 8,000 students, faculty and staff.

While it’s not a foregone conclusion, landing a high-profile company could grow the region’s reputation for video game building.

While Electronic Arts is known to build its Madden franchise in Maitland, the studio also contributes to other big-name titles from that office.

Steamroller Studios in Eustis has been working on its own game while also contributing contract work on titles such as the megahit Fortnite, Crystal Dynamics’ Rise of the Tomb Raider and Prey, a first-person shooter developed by Bethesda Softworks. The school’s involvement in the effort could determine whether it succeeds, Steamroller cofounder Adam Meyer said, because it could bring a steady stream of talent to video game companies that open Orlando offices.

“Any time you have a bunch of like-minded people, it helps the community,” Meyer said. “If one company needs an artist or has some contract work it needs done, it helps.”

The fringe benefits of having a hub for video game makers go beyond just a talent pipeline, however.

Meyer said building that community would mean a supply of companies that could help schools such as FIEA and Full Sail to craft curricula, much like Electronic Arts was instrumental in developing FIEA’s class schedule.

“When you’re in a bubble, you just don’t have the support,” Meyer said. “Having an ecosystem that can support you can certainly help you.”

The University of Central Florida’s efforts have not gone unnoticed by industry professionals, who say building a robust video game community from the ground up requires buy in from large entities like the school.

“They are trying to create density, and that takes millions of dollars,” said Kunal Patel, one of the leading advocates for Orlando’s video game community. He runs a coworking space that is home to several game developers downtown.

Patel has spent the past several years building Indienomicon, a group that connects independent video game builders in Central Florida.

His group often draws about 100 people to monthly meetings and, because of the area schools, frequently features budding companies that have built video games. Those are the businesses that need support, he said.

“At some point, the small baby studios will become medium-sized and eventually will grow bigger,” he said. Got a news tip? [email protected] or 407-420-5256; Twitter, @marcosantana

Marco Santana

Marco is a business reporter covering technology, tourism and defense. He previously covered technology for the Des Moines Register in Iowa, education for the Galesburg Register-Mail in Illinois and local government for the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago. Marco has taught at various journalism conferences in the Midwest.

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