Demolition started Tuesday on a redevelopment project near the Citrus Bowl in Downtown Orlando.
The Washington Shores Apartment Complex was purchased last year out of bankruptcy by the city of Orlando. Construction will begin in April on a mixed income housing project that officials say will have affordable housing, cradle-to-grave education and a focus on health and wellness.
Eddie Moratin is executive director of the nonprofit Lift Orlando, which is doing the project, said one goal is longterm economic viability.
"Our fourth goal of seeing economic development in the form of personal financial benefit is probably our most important bottom line," Mortain said. "At the end of the day we want to see people just working here, their kids going to school, and folks providing for their own families and the neighborhood not needing to be propped up by some outside charity.”
The project will be named The Villages at West Lake, and received more than $20 million in federal tax credits.
Moratin said the project will prevent gentrification, but Parramore resident Lawanna Gelzer disagrees.
"Well since I been leading a major campaign against gentrification against the city of Orlando, I don’t buy it," Gelzer said. "If that was the case, then you wouldn’t go about doing the projects that you do.”
Gelzer lost a bid for Orlando City Council last year. The Washington Shores project will be named The Villages at West Lake.
