by James Coulter
Approximately 14 market-rate apartments are planned to be built above 15,098 square feet of ground-level commercial property now that the city has approved the annexation, zoning, and land use designation change of 2.75 acres of land.
At their regular meeting on Tuesday, December 3, 2024, Lake Wales city commissioners voted unanimously to approve the second reading of three ordinances about nearly three acres of land located along Harding Avenue.
The first ordinance would annex the property into the city, while the other two ordinances would amend its future land use to Neighborhood Activity Center and its zoning to Village Center.
The property, according to Autumn Cochella, Director of Growth Management, is located “in unincorporated Polk County, west of US Highway 27 and south of Harding Avenue, adjacent to an existing residential neighborhood in the County, and opposite Highway 27 from McKibben Powersports.”
The proposed development will be a two-story mixed-use development, with more than 15,000 square-feet of commercial property and nearly 14 market-rate apartments on the second floor. It will also offer outdoor patio space for both residential and non-residential use and to “connect the two [proposed] buildings.”
“The building has been designed with a reduced front setback so as to hide the parking at the rear of the building, creating a better building-to-street relationship along US Highway 27,” Cochella wrote. “A roundabout is designed at the northern end of the parking lot for emergency apparatus turnaround. The highway is separated from the building front due to a large FDOT storm water retention pond along the roadway.”
No comments from the commission or the public were given about any of the three ordinances. City commissioners voted unanimously on each ordinance.
