Port Orange -Shaped by Choice, Not by Chance

Welcome to the City of Port Orange, a carefully planned community where growth yields rather than compromises, beauty and opportunity. Our diverse business community, progressive public schools, proud tree-lined neighborhoods and both active and passive recreational parks have been developed successively over the years by way of "strategic planning". Accordingly, Port Orange is consistently being shaped by choice, not by chance, and is developing as a distinct community that has much to offer. A leisurely drive around town will reveal that the City and its citizens set themselves apart from other communities.

The City of Port Orange is known for its tremendous foresight: formulating strategic plans to guide the City’s development and long term growth. These plans address such questions as: How would we like for the overall City to have grown 5 years from now? What about 10 years from now? How should planned growth be unique in this neighborhood versus that one insofar as form and function? What kind of positive experience do we want to create for the motorist, the cyclist and the pedestrian? Asking powerful questions such as these has not only enabled Port Orange to stay on top of its fast-paced growth, but it has given us the means to realize the City’s future vision of itself - one property and one neighborhood at a time.

Strategic Plans are Port Orange’s chief planning tool. However, complementing these plans are a series of land use and zoning classifications and some very comprehensive environmental, vehicular, architectural, landscaping and signage requirements. In essence, it is the application of these classifications and requirements to the development of given properties and thus neighborhoods over time, which enables the City to make positive strides towards meeting the goals of our strategic plans.

To further expand upon our employment base and to induce new development and redevelopment, the City of Port Orange created 2 distinct redevelopment areas and developed long-term strategic plans for them. The first is the Eastport Business Center and the second is the Town Center Redevelopment Area.

The Eastport Business Center, a 210 acre industrial redevelopment area, was established by the City in 1995. Located between Dunlawton Avenue to the north, Commonwealth Boulevard to the south, Spruce Creek Road to the west and the FEC railroad to the east, the City recognized that this area had only achieved a fraction of its development potential. A redevelopment plan was thus drafted and adopted. The goal of the plan was to maximize the area’s development potential by improving upon its infrastructure, by assisting its businesses in expanding and by attracting new ones to add to the mix. The prime project for Eastport was a 34 acre industrial subdivision for which the City partnered with a private developer in 1998. Thirteen separate lots were created, each capable of supporting its own office/warehouse industrial building, and were master-planned for stormwater retention purposes. A new roadway, called the Eastport Parkway, now provides access to these 13 lots. A second phase of the subdivision is also planned for the future. This second phase will likely create an additional 5 buildable lots and will extend and connect the Eastport Parkway with Commonwealth Boulevard to the south.

The Port Orange Town Center redevelopment area is located in the City’s historic core and was established in 1998. The area spans along both sides of U.S. 1 from the northerly City limits south to Fleming Avenue, and along both sides of Dunlawton Avenue from Spruce Creek Road eastwards to Peninsula Avenue. According to the adopted plan, the area consists of 5 special character districts: Riverwalk, Causeway, Dunlawton Village, Ridgewood and Down Under. Each district boasts a unique built environment and mix of land uses. However, the Riverwalk District boasts the greatest amount of redevelopment potential. This District will soon be redeveloped as a high-density mixed-use environment with a Florida vernacular style of architecture, a revised street network, a large central civic park and a boardwalk running along the Halifax River shoreline.

The 30-year redevelopment plans for Eastport and Town Center established suitable goals and objectives, land use and zoning classifications, development requirements, and even laid out key programs and initiatives. Town Center is testimony that the City of Port Orange is committed to preserving its historic core, to re-investing in this area and thus overcoming the negative effects of the City’s westward growth and expansion. Eastport is testimony that the City is serious about creating jobs and maximizing the development potential of our foremost industrial neighborhood. Since their inception, these plans have had tremendous results and continue to guide both public and private efforts towards the realization of their respective goals.

The City’s Dunlawton Avenue is also the product of a strategic plan. Adopted in 1990, the Dunlawton Corridor Plan established land use and zoning classifications in such a manner as to concentrate vehicular-intense commercial and office uses at arterial nodes (e.g. intersections), with less intense uses and some multi-family residential development between nodes. The Corridor Plan also established very clear (graphic and text-based) driveway access, public transit, bikepath, parking, site layout, architectural design, signage, landscaping and buffering requirements. The Corridor Plan was a pioneering effort on the City’s behalf. It proposed sweeping changes, yet in the form of very clear and concise requirements tied to a central theme – that of a grand boulevard for the City. And so today, after more than a decade since the adoption of the Plan and its application to the development of given properties, Dunlawton Avenue has emerged as an orderly, attractive boulevard, which is held in high esteem by all who travel it.

The 105 acre City Center Campus is the product of a similarly unique and successful plan. The necessary property was acquired, master planned and subsequently developed by the City. Today, this campus is home to our City Hall, a regional library, a YMCA, an outdoor amphitheater, a sports complex, a skate park, a police headquarters, a fire/rescue station and a civic center. All of these facilities have been developed successively over time, but in a manner which furthers a walkable, traditional campus-like setting, effectively linked to the surrounding neighborhoods. Therein lies it’s success. Also planned for the campus is a performing arts pavilion and a private chiropractic college for some 600 students.

A strategic plan has also been developed for the City’s "Third Village Center". [Town Center and the City Center Campus are considered village centers one and two for the City] This 1,200 acre tract of land to the west of Interstate 95 and north of Taylor Road, constitutes the last remaining undeveloped land mass within the corporate city limits of Port Orange. From the start, the City’s view-point has been: "We’ll only have one chance, so let’s do this right! If we don’t establish a strategic plan now, then this area will suffer the effects of sprawl, and be developed with a series of independent, gated single-family subdivisions." The City saw an opportunity. An opportunity to plan for and to create a Third Village Center within the greater Port Orange community. As a result of the formulated plan, this Village Center will consist of a series of residential neighborhoods, all pedestrian and cyclist-friendly, surrounding and linked to a central core. The central core will be anchored by an elementary school, park areas, a post office, along with a series of mixed-use commercial, office and multi-family developments. Industrially-zoned land will also be made available in certain strategic locations for corporate headquarter-type businesses. Overall, the Village Center will be laid out on a grid-like transportation network allowing for the orderly flow of traffic both within and through its neighborhoods. A planned Interstate 4 connection has also been factored into the Village Center plans. In the long term, the connection will not only realize transportation goals for the City, but economic development and emergency management ones as well.

As evidenced by the strategic plans which have been drafted and implemented for the Eastport Business Center, Port Orange Town Center, Dunlawton Avenue, the City Center Campus, and the Third Village Center, the City’s Department of Community Development has been actively involved in guiding and shaping Port Orange’s growth. Since its establishment in 1985, the Department has developed a widespread reputation for good judgement, professionalism, but most importantly – for its foresight. As a result of the Department’s efforts, the City has won numerous awards from state and independent planning agencies and organizations.

In short, the City staff believe that we all have an active role to play in shaping the future of Port Orange, and that we should go about this by working together and by forging partnerships. Port Orange’s history is marked by numerous successful, creative, forward-looking partnerships. We reflect upon these partnerships and their accomplishments, being our community as it stands today, with a tremendous sense of pride. In so doing, we are reminded that our ability to dream is our only true limitation insofar as shaping our neighborhoods and shaping Port Orange.