Commercial Development in Mount Dora: Epic Movie or Box-Office Dud?
It took a long candle to re-ignite Mount Dora’s Hollywood romance. Tall buildings almost snuffed it out, and they still loom over future development
Ground-breaking for the EPIC Theatre complex finally moved forward towards reality this March when EPIC Theatres purchased 17 acres of orange grove located between Target and Wal-Mart from the May and Whitaker Family Partnership of Umatilla.
At council’s April 5 meeting, the public arts requirement for both commercial and residential development was stricken from the Land Development code, clearing the last apparent hurdle for the $10 million, 12-screen theater complex.
If all moves forward as expected, the city will soon issue a site construction permit, and clearing work will begin soon afterward. According to Frank DeMarsh with EPIC Theatres, building construction will begin about three months later and take 10 months to finish.
By that reckoning, Mount Dora moviegoers will have finally have a chance to pack a local theater starting in June 2017.
Theater-goers will get their full entertainment bang for the buck with electronically-controlled leather recliner seating, digital projection and sound, wall-to-wall screens with 3-D capability, closed captioning and descriptive audio for hearing- and sight-impaired guests, a lobby bar and reserved seating with online ticketing. The centerpiece is the EPIC XL stadium auditorium with a 70 foot-wide curved screen and immersive digital sound.
The DeLand-based company currently has eight theater sites and 88 screens across Central Florida. The Mount Dora theater project is part of a planned expansion to add five more sites, including Titus Landing in Titusville and Lee Vista Promenade in Orlando, adding 48 more screens.
It will be the first movie theater in the Mount Dora-Eustis area since the Eustis Plaza Twin theater closed in July 1996. Mount Dora’s local venue, the Princess Theater, closed in the late 1970s.
It’s been a long, slow process between EPIC and the city getting through all the development hurdles. Was all of it necessary, and are there lessons to be learned going forward as Mount Dora tries to attract new business into the area while managing significant growth on its east side?
The now-epic Mount Dora-EPIC Theatre story actually begins with a conversation about tall buildings.
In late 2012, the city was considering mixed-use development in four areas — Pineapple Point, the property along the city’s waterfront, the Golden Triangle Shopping Center and the property on South Highland that was the old Growers’ Co-Op. Based on direction from the city’s Economic Development Advisory Committee and Envision Mount Dora’s steering committee (plan adopted by Council in 2012), the planning department, under Mark Reggentin, was going through the process of changing the Comprehensive and Land Development plans to allow for mixed-used development in those areas.
It was the the waterfront and the Pineapple Point property which had some folks in town worried, as there had been talk of building a convention center there. During a mixed-use workshop on January 10, 2013, many voiced concern that building height provisions in the mixed-use designation was a slippery slope that could lead to a significant change in the complexion of downtown. Despite assurances from Reggentin and then-city attorney Cliff Shepard that such changes could not happen without legislation from council, the wary mood persisted. As a result, council changed the language in the mixed-use ordinance to restrict taller building heights to Highland Avenue and the Golden Triangle Shopping center, and added language restricting applicants from using adjacent land uses which differ from theirs as justification for a change.
EPIC Theatres announced their plan to build the theater complex in February of 2014. Originally the plan was to begin construction in January 2015 with an opening last November. The project got off easily enough, with the property annexed into the city in October 2014.
Staff then recommended changing the designation of the property from Residential to Commercial Future Land Use. With the parcel located adjacent to Target, Wal-Mart and general commercial users to the north and west, the proposed Commercial Future Land Use was considered a compatible designation with surrounding land use patterns.
Here is where the EPIC project hit its first hitch. Because the proposed theater use would require movie screen sizes with minimum floor clearance of 50 feet in height, zoning issues also came into play. Building height is a function of the zoning performance standards restricted by each zoning district.
While allowing a C-3 commercial zoning to permit a structure over 35 feet, there are no C-3 zoning districts in downtown Mount Dora. C-3 is the highway zoning district. Buildings up to 60 feet are already allowed in the planned Wolf Branch Innovation District and the mixed-use districts mentioned above.
Additionally, the change to the mixed-use ordinance done in 2013 — made due to concerns about building heights downtown — created an additional block because EPIC’s justification for a change from residential to commercial use was based upon the adjacent land use pattern. In order to move forward, that ordinance would have to be changed again.
In the December 2, 2014 council meeting, Herbert Green, professional engineer for Cadjazz LLC and representing EPIC Theatres, requested approval for the change. He explained the reasons for the building height, which including the demands of modern technology and elegance of design to the structure.
Council debated whether allowing C-3 zoning status to EPIC might affect the downtown building heights. Could a Planned Use Development be written instead? (Reggentin: A PUD must include a residential component.) Another suggested tabling the zoning ordinance and have the planning department go look for other ways to allow EPIC the increased building height in a way that would have no effect elsewhere. Mr. Green with EPIC told council that a delay would make it hard to pull of the project on the tight schedule they had developed. The motion to delay was defeated and council voted 5–2 to grant the zoning status.
In February 2015, council took up the four interrelated ordinances, which would make all the necessary changes in the comprehensive and land use plans, as well as changing the zoning classifications to allow EPIC the green light to proceed with development.
The meeting proved controversial as a number of citizens turned out again, this time concerned that US-441 commercialization would eventually lead to tall buildings downtown. Was the city’s historic image in jeopardy? Could a developer with big enough pockets muscle their way into downtown with a legal challenge based on the precedent of the zoning change on US-441? Should downtown place a moratorium on all downtown development?
Although Reggentin reiterated that council would have to legislate any changes to the existing comprehensive and land use plans before C-3 zoning could even be considered for downtown, trust between some citizens and the city’s planning staff was continuing to run at a very low level, for reasons unknown to those informed of the downtown protections that were in place. With concerns about the height of waterfront development still on some folks’ minds, Reggentin also reminded that the existing comprehensive plan does not allow for buildings higher than 25 feet within 100 feet of Lake Dora.
Despite vocal opposition, Reggentin’s explanations were deemed sound and the four ordinances were passed by council and the EPIC project resumed its progress. A site plan was filed by EPIC in April 2015, but the city’s Development Review committee identified 12 pages’ worth of Land Development Code deficiencies to be addressed by the developer. EPIC required an extension in June for filing the revised plan and did so again in August. Later that month, the Development Review committee recommended approval of the plan and they voted in favor in late September. The Planning and Zoning committee followed suit in October.
EPIC and the city went back and forth then on the development agreement, first submitted in September and re-submitted in October. Then-city attorney Shepard raised concerns and it went back to EPIC in November.
By December 2015, the development agreement was still pending with several items to work out, but the new council was antsy to see the project finished. Three variances were at issue, and EPIC had approached the city to see what could be done to speed approval.
At the December meeting, Reggentin said the timeline EPIC had requested was greatly accelerated over normal process and would require significant additional staff resources and have to be completed without the usual public notice and open meeting processes that accompany development approvals.
Then-city attorney Shepard warned at that same meeting of “mission creep.” “If we do it for one,” he said, “we will have to change the application procedure for all — allowing other developers to skirt the process.”
However, Mayor Girone said that it was taking too long to finish the project, and if there was anything the city could do to expedite it, they should. “This is what the community wants,” he said. Councilman Slaby added that the city needed to show more enthusiasm for service. Mr. Shepard suggested that the motion be amended to say the city manager will do all he can that’s legal to expedite the process, and that motion carried. On December 16, 2015, the Planning and Zoning committee approved the variances.
Since then, the city has tried to keep up that accelerated pace in getting through the final hurdles. The last (as of this writing) was cleared with council’s unanimous vote on April 5 to remove the public arts requirement for both residential and commercial development from the Land Development code. While that was still in effect, EPIC was beholden to submit a plan for public art on their property. They were also supposed to pay tens of thousands of dollars, which the city had offered to hold in escrow until council changed the ordinance. EPIC had not taken action on either of these while council deliberated the change over the past several months and awaited decisions from the city’s planning and zoning and public arts committees, as well as an opinion from then-city attorney Shepard.
For a city that seems intent on keeping the gas pedal pressed for accelerated progress, it hasn’t helped that Mount Dora’s planning department is currently so short-staffed (director Mark Reggentin took a job in Apopka as their head of economic development and incentives and assistant director Gus Gianikas resigned to take a job with the City of Ocala). Vince Sandersfeld is wearing all of the management hats for the departments, as well as providing staff support for several citizen boards.
Given that workload, it’s not surprising that he was not available to comment for this story. (Most of it was drawn from the narrative past of council minutes. (Megan Glass, the city’s information officer, did provide a 2-page chronology of the EPIC Theatre project.)
As other commercial development projects swing into view — Pineapple Point being the most prominent — are there lessons to be learned from this long, bumpy ride?
First, for all the desire to see projects come to a quick consummation, it is neither advisable nor legally appropriate to circumvent the process by which changes are made to the city’s planning documents. Especially so now, with so much residential and commercial development coming to Mount Dora. The process must be disciplined and carefully considered.
Second, planning is a time-consuming process involving council, citizen boards and many levels of city staff. The better these functions work together — the greater the trust between all parties that each is doing their job — the smoother and faster the process will move along.
Although Mount Dora has taken the legal measures to ensure its downtown character is protected from the sort of development that would bring tall buildings — and whatever feared contents they presumably must contain — into its midst, distrust continues to echo around city hall. Just this last council meeting, Mr. Slaby asked acting planning director Vince Sandersfield to “take another look” at the issue of 35-foot buildings downtown.
So while some are breathing a sigh of relief that something finally is to begin at the Pineapple Point property recently sold, all the previous conversations about downtown development makes it unclear just how expeditious and business-friendly this next project will be, or any of the ones soon to follow.
Everyone seems to want a new movie theatre complex — it’s been a long, long time since you could walk downtown and catch a double-feature at the Princess on Fifth Avenue. But granting favorable-nation-status to one developer while using the same code to make a hard slog for another is a law bending exercise of potential liability. It’s not only inconsistent and sends the wrong message to the business community, it could become a legal problem for the city and its taxpayers.
It isn’t clear how much the current council still embraces the city’s Envision Plan, which was intended to provide lasting guidance for many development issues now coming into play (including waterfront development). Also at the last council meeting, Mr. Slaby suggested hiring an outside consultant to review of the city organization to determine whether Mount Dora “is ready” for all the development to come. If a practical and thorough assessment of the city’s capabilities is required, council should take a look at ex-city manager Vincent Pastue’s SWOT memo. Why spend money coming up with the similar conclusions? Oh, but there is that issue of trust …
EPIC Theatre is finally out of Mount Dora’s No-Tall-Buildings woods, but it remains to be seen how well a movie theater business will fare in today’s streaming world. It may be finally arriving here just when it is hardest to convince people to leave the comfort of their own homes. Fortunately, Mount Dora’s aging demographic is the one most likely to take advantage of the confines of the theater experience. (In March, an outfit called Screening Room announced a service that would bring first-run movies to streaming customers’ home, going around distributors and further eroding the advantage of cinemas.)
And for downtown Mount Dora, the renewed conversation about tall buildings sounds like déjà vu all over again. Let’s hope the city can screen the next ‘Commercial Development movie’ without so much distrust and fear this time around.
— David Cohea, Writer (djcohea@gmail.com)
Originally published at www.mountdoracitizen.com on April 11, 2016.
