Winter Garden buys sites for ‘nicest park on Lake Apopka’
Winter Garden has agreed to buy three residential properties on the shore of Lake Apopka for $1.6 million and meld them with two other city-owned parks, creating the largest recreation site on the lake’s southeast side.
“This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and a great chance to expand our park system on the lake,” Winter Garden City Manager Mike Bollhoefer said of the decision to buy the properties between Dr. Bradford Memorial Park and Newton Park.
The acquisition, approved unanimously by city commissioners, is part of a broader plan to add or improve recreational venues in the city, which has grown from 29,000 residents in 2008 to more than 43,000.
Bollhoefer said city commissioners may ask voters next year to approve a bond issue that would generate about $20 million for the west Orange city to buy land for soccer fields, upgrade its Little League complex and pay for other recreation projects.
“We’ve got many things in the works,” he said.
If voters approve the bond issue, the city also would reconfigure a stretch of the busy West Orange Trail near City Hall to straighten out a sharp turn for cyclists and add a small park.
The city is eyeing property owned by the West Orange Church of Christ between Winter Garden Vineland Road and Daniels Road for six new soccer fields, one sized for adult play and the others for youths.
“Like other growing communities, we have a dire need for soccer fields,” Bollhoefer said.
This summer, the city expects to open Tucker Ranch, a 209-acre property featuring a working farm close to three of west Orange’s busiest roadways — Avalon Road, State Road 50 and an elevated stretch of Florida’s Turnpike.
Bollhoefer said Winter Garden has no specific plan yet for the three new shore-front prop-
erties, which total about 5.35 acres and were appraised collectively at about $1.4 million, but “we’ll start looking at our options for the future.”
“If we did not buy at this time, it was our belief we would have lost the opportunity forever,” he said.
The properties were owned by a trust created by Roger and Clemence Godin, who acquired the three lakefront sites in separate transactions in the early 2000s for a total of $561,000, according to Orange County property records.
All have rental properties which are occupied by tenants.
Bollhoefer said the city will honor the existing leases so none of the tenants will be booted out.
Fed by a natural spring and stormwater runoff, Lake Apopka once was a top attraction in Central Florida, luring anglers from across the U.S. and Canada to shoreline fish camps for a chance to hook trophy-size, largemouth bass.
But the 50-square-mile lake, considered Florida’s fourth-largest, devolved from a fishing paradise into a toxic cesspool during a half-century of environmental abuse beginning in the 1940s, with chemical runoff from vegetable farms. The contamination turned the lake water a fluorescent green and killed off game fish.
However, the lake has been slowly recovering since 1996, when the Lake Apopka Restoration Act was signed into law, providing money to buy farms blamed for harmful discharge, a cleanup headed by the St. Johns River Water Management District.e
Although considered by some as a passive recreation area for bird-watchers, the 20,000-acre Lake Apopka North Shore was acquired with the intent of protecting the lake’s water quality, district spokeswoman Danielle Spears said.
Apopka and Orange also see ecotourism potential around the recovering lake, and Apopka has conceptually proposed a recreation venue for birders and nature lovers who want to see alligators in natural settings.
On the lake’s west side in Lake County, the 196acre Ferndale Preserve offers 1.6 miles of equestrian/hiking trail, a playground and restrooms.
Future plans call for an observation tower, a canoe/kayak launch and more trails.
With 50 species of butterflies and 190 kinds of birds, the preserve also boasts one of the best views in Central Florida — a visitor can stand 162 feet above sea level and see not only the lake but, on a clear day, the Orlando skyline.
Both of Winter Garden’s two lakefront parks, Dr. Bradford Memorial Park with an entrance on West Division Street and Newton Park where the city’s Independence Day celebration is staged, feature picnic areas with grills and fishing sites.
Newton Park also has a playground and a long wooden pier to spy on alligators and turtles.
With the new properties figured in, the combined park would be 25 acres, with a long shoreline.
“If it all comes together right,” Bollhoefer said, “it’ll be the nicest park on Lake Apopka.”