Parramore Revitalization

VHB's Curt Ostrodka and Roberta Fennessy share insights and memories on the revitalization of the Parramore neighborhood in Orlando, which has transformed education, mobility, and housing via healthy community design.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
(Mike Carragher) Viewpoints is VHB’s thought leadership platform,
where we share insights on critical issuesand emerging technologies in the AEC industry.
I’m Mike Carragher, President and CEO of VHB.
I’m excited to introduce VHB’sthought leaders and our client and partner podcast
participants—all future-focused thinkerswho want to reimagine the built environment.

(00:24):
I hope you’ll tune in often and leave inspired!
(Curt Ostrodka)We’re here today to talk about the continuing
revitalization of Parramore in Orlando, Florida,and how VHB partnered with the City –
and the community – to enhance economic development
opportunities while preserving culture and heritage.
I’m Curt Ostrodka, VHB’s director of Smart Communities

(00:47):
and I served as the project manager for the Paramore
Comprehensive Neighborhood Plan in Orlando, Florida.
(Roberta Fennessy)I’m Roberta Fennessy, VHB Southeast Region Service Leader for Planning and Design,
and I’ve also been working in the Paramore communitysince 2013.
(Curt Ostrodka)For over a decade, VHB has assisted the City of Orlando with the revitalization of the Parramore Community.

(01:08):
Parramore
used to be a thriving neighborhood
full of African American businesses,
cultural and artistic institutions.
But that changed over time, notablywith the introduction of the interstate highway,
which cut off downtown Orlandofrom the Parramore community.
So, that led to population decline.
That led to businesses closing.

(01:29):
That led to there was no school within Parramorefor the children to go to anymore.
(Roberta Fennessy)And around the same time that the city embarked on the more comprehensive neighborhood plan,
there were a lot of disparate initiativeshappening in the Paramore community and affecting them.
The city got a new soccer stadiumright in the heart of the community.
Creative Village was a redevelopment of the Amway Arena,which was the home of the Orlando Magic.

(01:52):
They relocated and now approximately 60 acres of landbecame available for redevelopment.
And so, the plan really looked to prioritizethe community’s needs and put the community first
and in the future economic developmentinitiatives happening in the community.
(Curt Ostrodka)So, the city partnered with VHB in order to make sure that the new economic developments that were occurring,

(02:13):
such as the creative village, were donerespectfully with the need
to balance economic development with cultural heritagewithin the community.
In 2013, the city of Orlando was awarded a HUD grant,which eventually funded
the Paramore Comprehensive Neighborhood Planthat VHB partnered with the city on.
Over time, VHB has been a steady partner

(02:33):
to help not only with the development of the plan,the community outreach and engagement portion of it,
but then some of the subsequent projectsthat followed the plan guidelines.
And Roberta, you were involved in some of those.
(Roberta Fennessy)So, I began working in the Paramore community in 2013 as a member of the development team for Creative Village.
Later on, I worked on behalf of the city of Orlandoas a consultant

(02:56):
to help open and launchCreative Village in the UCF downtown campus.
And since desegregation there hadn’t been anelementary school in the neighborhood for over 40 years.
And so based on the neighborhood plan’srecommendations, a new K
through eight Center for Academic Excellence opened UCF,
relocated some of its programs to a new downtown campusin collaboration with Valencia College.

(03:18):
And there’s really this thrivingnucleus of academic activity there that’s palpable
and that’s really exciting in the middle of the communityso that residents can see and experience
and be a part of it.
(Curt Ostrodka)I think one of the most impactful outcomes of the Parramore Plan
was the introduction of an educational hubconcept within the shared vision.
And that led to, as you mentioned, the introduction

(03:40):
of the UCF Downtown and Valencia College campus,which brought 7,000 students
and faculty and administration members to downtown
to really mix in with the Parramore Community.
And I think it’s really notable that a philanthropist
saw the energy that was happening and dedicated
college scholarships to all of the Paramore kidswho went through the new elementary school

(04:05):
and then made it graduate from high schooland went through UCF downtown.
So, we were able to help facilitate a cradle
to career pipeline all within the neighborhood.
(Roberta Fennessy)And I think that focus on education and academics has really been,
you know, what’swhich set apart the evolving future of Paramore.
Different from past redevelopments,focusing on the community.

(04:28):
I always say that this was a city ledbut community driven plan that VHB worked on
and focusing on education was a great move to prioritizethe community’s needs.
It’s very important for the community to have a seatat the table from day one, and we played a huge part
in nurturing that relationship between community members,stakeholders in the city of Orlando.

(04:48):
And Curt,you were involved in so much of that initial public
outreach and stakeholder engagement from day one.
(Curt Ostrodka)We held so many public meetings.
Part of the biggest obstacle was just buildingtrust within the community
because there have been many plansthat had been promised before, but really no delivery
for the residents to trust in in the cityor their partners and consultants.

(05:12):
So that meant we went to the restaurants,we went to the businesses.
I still go to the same barber in Paramorethat I have been going for the last ten years now,
because that’s part of our commitmentto really get to know people within the community.
So, we met with different neighborhood associations,but one of the challenges was because there’s a very low
homeownership rate within the community

(05:34):
at that time,we really had to try to build the constituency
through trustand through a lot of activity and public workshops.
One of my favorite activities was working with the youthwithin the community, and we got out the Lego blocks
and asked them to just develop the communitythat they would like to see in the future.

(05:54):
And that was a great activity because we showed thatthen to the adults and they said that’s
those are pretty good ideas.
So it was it was a great way to try to engage
in as many people where they were as we could.
And we're really proud of those efforts.
(Roberta Fennessy)I think VHB really played an important part
in nurturing that culture of collaborationand that relationship.

(06:15):
As a faculty member at UCF, when UCF came to downtown,
they built on that and saw the importanceof nurturing that relationship and they established
the Parramore Community Engagement Council,and I had the privilege of serving on that for two years.
And it truly was about continuing that relationshipand continuing the listening and the collaboration.
(Curt Ostrodka)The approach we use for public engagement and for the project as a whole was healthy community design.

(06:41):
So, we wanted to teach people or educate
on ways to improve their daily health
through the urban designand the development and form of the community.
And education was a big part of that.
The educational facilitiesthat weren’t there, but also access to healthy food,
access to transit opportunities, accessto job opportunities

(07:03):
and access to just walking trails and placeswhere you can get safe physical activity.
And that was a very easy wayto communicate to the community.
These are the things that we can do to help youimprove your own physical health
rather than talk about architecture or urban planning.
And it was a very easy communication method.

(07:23):
(Roberta Fennessy)So, one of the healthy community design principles
speaks to access to healthy food for communities.
And Parramore was definitely a food desert.
So, that’s a planning termwe use a lot, and it just simply means that access
to fresh produce and healthy foods –the typical stuff we find in grocery stores.
So, they may have access to convenience storesor bodegas, but not a true grocery store.

(07:48):
Early on, the city recognized that.
And one of the first moves was to realignone of the BRT routes - the bus rapid transit routes
- to help pair more residentsaccess a nearby grocery store in the downtown core.
(Curt Ostrodka)Not only that, for our first public workshop, we had the Nurses
Association from University of Central Florida,as well as students come out and do basic health

(08:10):
screenings for peopleso they could learn a little bit about their BMI,
their weight, any existing conditionsthey may be concerned about.
And since the City has a goal to be futureready and incorporate smart cities technologies,
they are now introducing an autonomous circulatorwithin Parramore
that will connect to Lynx Central Station,which is the main transit hub of the city,

(08:34):
connecting to the light rail, to all the bus routes.
(Roberta Fennessy)And let’s not forget all the micro mobility that we see around Parramore, from the e-scooters to the e-bikes,
they’re everywhere and I think that really speaksto the enhanced mobility options in the neighborhood.
(Curt Ostrodka)I think some of the biggest benefits coming out of the Parramore Comprehensive
Neighborhood Plan has been the introductionof new, mixed income housing.

(08:58):
There’s a very large affordable housing issuewithin Central Florida right now,
particularly within Parramorewhere a lot of the housing was already substandard.
in the time since we completed the plan.
In the time since we completed the plan, over 300new mixed income housing units have been developed.
And the concept of mixed income is really importantbecause it’s not just low income,

(09:18):
but there’s market rate mixed in there as well—andit all looks the same.
(Roberta Fennessy)We really saw the Creative Village Master Plan align with those principles
of creating a neighborhoodwith diversity of economic incomes.
And today,we see market rate housing, student housing, affordable
housing all co-existing in that Parramore ecosystem.

(09:40):
(Curt Ostrodka)I’d like to thank my co-host
and my friend, Roberta,for sharing these memories with me.
The Parramore Comprehensive Neighborhood Plan has beenone of the most challenging projects I’ve ever worked on,
but also one of the most rewarding as we’vebeen able to watch the community
transform and revitalize to be the way it used to be.