Kissimmee Lake Front
Kissimmee’s lakefront is to be transformed into a type of Church Street Station with a restaurant and an event pavilion or an upscale residential neighborhood with a small grocery or a pub.
Local officials are evaluating the plans designed to transform the pituresque little spot.
The 2 proposals submitted are ...
Geech Partin’s Cowboy Saloon on the first floor of the old Columbia Hotel on Broadway. The 3,600-square-foot venue would feature bluegrass and "cowboy" music, an antique-filled saloon, vintage chandeliers and Osceola pictures and memorabilia. The saloon would be named after a prominent Osceola rancher who died in 1994.
Osceola Trading Co., an antique shop similar to the Buffalo Trading Co. that was next to the Cheyenne Saloon at Church Street Station.
Cracker Joe’s Dance Hall and Bar-B-Que in the Roy E. Hansel power plant building. Snow’s team wants the city to pay about $2 million to move the building across the street and renovate it, he said.
Lake Toho Pavilion, an 18,000-square-foot Victorian pavilion for art shows and concerts.
Lake Toho Yacht Club, which would be rebuilt and turned into a 7,000-square-foot seafood restaurant.
Kissimmee Hotel, modeled after the Tropical Hotel, a defunct Kissimmee landmark.
Or..
Monument Park on Lake Tohopekaliga, which includes an entertainment district, a community park and a bigger park for events near the area currently used for fishing tournaments.
Drawings show boat slips and a promenade surrounded by multistory buildings. In its proposal, the company calls Monument Park "a center of action, a meeting place, the place to see and be seen."
The park will have an interactive fountain, banners, flags and plantings surrounded by restaurants, pubs and non-chain retail stores, the plan shows. The marina would be expanded.
Condominiums priced from $220,500 to $392,000 are a large component of this project. So is a condo-hotel complex.
The committee is to meet with both parties on Friday to get more information. It will make a recommendation to the Community Redevelopment Agency, which will advise the City Commission.
Posted on 12 April 2005
