The Packing District Opportunity Zone

Overview

The Opportunity Zone Program is a federal program that provides tax incentives, including temporary deferrals on capital gains taxes when investors reinvest those gains in qualified Opportunity Funds. These funds are in turn invested in communities from designated census tracts (Opportunity Zones).

The city's role in the Opportunity Zone Program is to connect funding with projects, develop an investable pipeline of projects and to leverage these projects to create new opportunities for residents and encourage upward mobility.

Vision

As the Packing District continues to develop, the area is most well-suited and in need of regional recreation, mixed-use development, industrial chic designs, adaptive reuse of original packing citrus industry, warehouses and an urban farm.

The College Park Main Street, an Orlando Main Street Program, created a future plan for the community designed to encourage community wellness from the development of a new regional park to the network of plazas, each connected by pedestrian and bike trails that stitch everything together. The project will preserve and recapture a defining part of our community’s history while providing a vibrant base of living and commerce.

Current activity

Dr. Phillips Charities, an organization experienced in master planning and implementation, will be leading the development within the Packing District. Development will include: 97 acres of land currently industrial/commercial to be converted to mixed-use and residential, 105 acres of dedicated regional park, including a 40-acre urban farm, and 3,500 units of projected residential with 1 million square feet of projected retail and office space.

Other funding opportunities within the Packing District include:

Anchor development

Some highlights specifically within the Packing District include:

• YMCA Family Center

• Regional Park and Trails

• Food Hall

• 4Roots Farm & Agriculture Center

• Townhomes and Multi-Family Residential