By Ken Jackson
Staff Writer
The Osceola County Board of County Commissioners recently accelerated a plan to allow businesses and residents in the U.S. Highway 192 corridor west of Hoagland Boulevard to invest in their property, enhance its value and put locals to work doing it.

The West U.S. 192 Community Redevelopment Agency, recently approved by commissioners, crosses Interstate 4 and runs all the way to the county line near U.S. Highway 27. The entire block encompasses more than 12,000 acres.

The agency, funded by the state, is an essential part of the county’s Strategic Plan goal to grow and diversify its economy by making the corridor more attractive with viable businesses, as well as planning capital redevelopment projects to improve the look of the area.
The new CRA encompasses the heart of the tourism corridor, with its collection of hotels, restaurants and other businesses that line what is essentially the driveway of Walt Disney World. Commissioner Michael Harford’s district 1 boundaries include the area of the new CRA, and he has kept maintaining the standards of the area as a top priority.
“We want to be on their doorstep, but I don’t want to be their doormat,” Harford said regarding Disney. “Redevelopment in the area has had issues, so we wanted to re-evaluate how the corridor is perceived.
“The CRA will provide the tools, and as the economy improves, the funding for redevelopment of this corridor that is vital to our county.”
One of his hopes is that the CRA will help balance the ratio of retail businesses to the tourist-based locations in the area. But the biggest benefit to the area will be the availability of Florida PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) funding, which all property owners, commercial and residential, within the CRA area can utilize to make enhancements like façade improvements and energy-efficient air conditioning units and roofing materials.
“These programs will focus on local contractors and would promote local jobs,” Harford said. “It’s a series of simple acts we can do for the private sector putting money and resources back into their properties. The benefit to individual properties is that it provides a vehicle for increasing their property values and lower their costs. And, it’s easy because it’s not the county’s money.”
It is the second CRA the county has created this year, following a 2.8-mile segment of U.S. Highway 192 stretching east from the Kissimmee city limits near Michigan Avenue to Partin Settlement Road. Kissimmee has its own CRA within the city limits, creating three distinct economic development areas from U.S. Highway 27 to just west of St. Cloud.
Each one has unique needs of Tourist Development Tax resources, Harford said.
“We hope this can keep discussions open in order to blend the areas together,” he said.
Next steps for the agency include creating redevelopment plans for the three sectors of the CRA. The first plan will be completed for the section between Vineland Road and Hoagland Boulevard. All of the redevelopment plans are expected to be complete in 2013.