I included only the Historic core of Sandford between the lake and 13th Street and French & Locust Streets. Known as the “Historic Waterfront Gateway City,” Sanford sits on the southern shore of Lake Monroe at the head of navigation on the St. Johns River. The town started to grow in the late 1800s when the South Florida Railroad ran a line from Sanford to Tampa. This helped propel Sandford and the surrounding area into the largest shipper of oranges in the world. The City waxed and waned for many years but eventually found its footing. A City streetscaping project in 2004 helped breath new life into Downtown and many new stores and businesses opened. Sanford has a well invested and extensive historic main street across several streets, along with great waterfront parks. South of here are many attractive historic streets with turn of the century architecture. To become a great urban core there are is significant in-fill and additional density needed here along with the remediation of a fair amount of blight. Plenty of vacant lots and surface parking surrounding the historic core of Downtown. |
URBAN STRENGTHS:
| * Excellent street grid and connectivity. * Nice array of Bike lanes across Sanford. * Excellent racial and economic diversity. * Diverse array of for-sale housing starting around 100K to 400K. * Wonderful array of waterfront parks including the Sanford Riverwalk, Veterans Memorial Park & Ft. Mellon Park. Also several nice neighborhood parks. * Culturally lots of great restaurants, craft beer & bars, several historic theaters, and many live music venues. * Decent amount of neighborhood amenities including a drug store, supermarket, and lots of boutiques, and socially stores Dwtn. All a public library, post office. * Several nice elementary schools and a public middle school just outside of Historic Sanford. * ADA infrastructure is generally good but some areas with less than ideal sidewalks and curb cuts in the residential areas. * Great urban massing in the blocks where the historic buildings are still in tact. |
URBAN WEAKNESSES:
| * Sanford is only a 30 minute drive to dwtn Orlando but really no bus service. * Family households are pretty limited. * Rentals are limited especially 1-bedrooms. Price points are pretty average. * Generally safe area but some blighted spots. * Modern infill is mostly auto centric. * Fair amount of surface parking, open space (not parks), and auto centric areas. |
Evaluating our Urban Communities [with a focus on America] 