HRT for Women in Clarcona, FL

Florida-based entrepreneur Trisha Bailey wants to transform an old horse ranch in Orange County’s Clarcona neighborhood into a new assisted living community.

Baileys Real Estate LLP, a company tied to Bailey, just submitted a Land Use Plan application in Orange County seeking to rezone about 50 acres on the northwest corner of Gilliam Road and Clarcona Ocoee Road. The application states Bailey wants to develop 18 independent living villas, a 100-bed assisted living facility and a 12,320-square-foot clubhouse for residents.

The project, called Bailey’s Community, is planned to rise on the former Highlife Farms equestrian complex, which Bailey bought out of bankruptcy last year for $2.5 million from previous owners, Kenneth and Joan Sims.

The couple filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy last year in the United State Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Norfolk Division, and were ordered to sell and convey the land through an authorized trustee by the end of 2019. Baileys Real Estate LLP was the buyer.

Bailey founded several eponymous companies that specialize in the medical industry throughout Florida, including her Bailey’s Medical Supplies company and Bailey’s Pharmacy family-owned businesses.

Momtaz Barq of Terra Max Engineering is the engineer on the project.

Bailey was not immediately available to comment.

Her proposed assisted living facility is near Orange County’s growing cities to the west, like Ocoee and Apopka.

Ocoee’s city’s population has nearly tripled since the initial City Hall was built in the mid-1990s from 17,000 residents to more than 50,000, according to the American Community Survey.

Iowa developer Wendell Corey also filed plans earlier this year for a 96-bed assisted living facility in Ocoee dedicated to memory care. Cottages at Ocoee would rise on 6.9 acres at 1900 E. Silver Star Rd.

Homebuilders active in Ocoee include Mattamy Homes, which is developing its 303-lot Preserve at Crown Point gated community, and Lennar Homes, which continues to expand its Arden Park North subdivision around Lake Sims.

Orlando-based Chau Medical Group is also looking to build an assisted living facility in Central Florida.

Founder Dr. Son Chau plans to break ground soon on his planned mixed-use development in Winter Springs that will include 6,400 square feet of new retail space, a three-story medical office building and a 114-bed assisted living facility.

Have a tip about Central Florida development? Contact me at arabines@GrowthSpotter.com or (407) 420-5427, or tweet me at @amanda_rabines. Follow GrowthSpotter on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

OCOEE The next time you drive by Clarcona Elementary School, you’ll notice the words “Prairie Lake Elementary School” on the side of the building.

In the summer of 2013, Clarcona Elementary School moved from its former location on Damon Road to its current location at 8723 Hackney Prairie Road.

At first, the school site was to be a temporary home for Clarcona Elementary, but after two years passed, Principal Robert Strenth discussed with the Parent-Teacher Association and School Advisory Council the desire to stay at the site and how to make the school better reflect the neighborhood.

“When it started to look like we’d be able to stay rather than going back, that’s where the push came to, ‘Let’s make this school our school,’” Strenth said.

The SAC and the PTA began to solicit ideas for a new name to better reflect the neighborhood. Most parents said that they supported a name change, and Prairie Lake, Hackney Prairie and Northwest all were proposed names.

The parents selected Prairie Lake, which is the name of a nearby park.

“It’s something our students are familiar with, not only at school but also in the neighborhood,” Strenth said.

The name change became official when the Orange County School Board approved it in January.

Students also voted on a new mascot. Out of the Panthers, Pioneers and Owls, they overwhelmingly selected the Panthers. The school’s colors are now purple, black and gold.

The new location offers some advantages, Strenth said. More students are able to walk to school, and the school has been able to offer more after-school activities for students and their families. The school now has nearly 15 different clubs, including a new chess club.

“It’s important to me and to my teachers and my staff to have that identification with the school, that there’s more here than just, ‘Come into the classroom, do my classwork and leave,’” Strenth said.

Contact Jennifer Nesslar at jnesslar@orangeobserver.com.

Mailing services are likely to look different this summer. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is gearing up for another price hike in July, as well as introducing new stamp designs and changing rules for mailing standards. But some customers have more immediate changes to worry about. In its latest alerts, the USPS revealed that it is suspending services in new places. Read on to find out about the latest post office closures.

The Postal Service often adjusts its operations for any number of reasons. But it doesn't do so without informing those who will be affected.

Customers can go to the agency's Service Alerts website to "find out if mail is being delivered, or if their post offices are open," according to the USPS. This online tool is frequently-updated to provide the latest information about postal disruptions.

The most recent update from the Postal Service indicates that customers in two states are dealing with new suspensions: Florida and Vermont. On April 20, the USPS released alerts about service disruptions affecting the Clarcona Post Office in Florida and the Thetford Center facility in Vermont.

The Florida facility is already closed to customers.

According to the new alert, the USPS has suspended services at its facility in Clarcona, Florida, for safety reasons.

"Effective immediately, retail operations at the Post Office are temporarily suspended until further notice," the agency stated in a separate local press release posted April 2o.

The Postal Service did not elaborate on the specific safety concern at play but said it was done "in an abundance of caution, and to ensure the safety of both postal customers and employees." Best Life reached out to the agency for more information, but a spokesperson for the USPS declined to comment further.

During the closure, customers from the Clarcona Post Office are being directed to pick up their mail and access retail services at the nearby Apopka Post Office.

"The Postal Service will provide additional information when normal operations resume," the agency said in its release, adding that it "apologizes for any inconvenience these temporary suspensions may cause our customers."

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On the other hand, the Postal Service is giving customers advance notice of its suspension at a post office in Thetford, Vermont.

According to the alert, the Thetford Center facility will be closed temporarily starting April 28. This closure is the result of "scheduled maintenance," the USPS said.

Best Life reached out to the agency for more information on the suspension, but has not yet heard back.

"During this closure, P.O. Box customers' mail will be available and retail services offered at the Thetford Post Office," the Postal Service said in its alert. "Customers are reminded to bring proper photo identification for mail and package pickups."

These are not the only facilities facing ongoing suspensions.

The new suspensions in Florida and Vermont are the most recent alerts from the USPS, but there are more facilities that are currently closed to customers.

On April 17, the Postal Service announced that it would be suspending operations at a different Florida facility—this time in Trilby. According to a separate local press release, the temporary closure of the Trilby Post Office is also "due to safety concerns."

That same day, the USPS also informed customers that two post offices in the Kansas City area of Missouri will be "inaccessible to the public" from April 22 to May 1.

A spokesperson for the agency previously told Best Life that the Kansas City Main Office and the Kansas City Main Retail Office will be temporarily inaccessible "due to surrounding area closures" ahead of the 2023 National Football League (NFL) Draft, which is being held in the area from April 27 to 29.

Kali Coleman

There are a number of communities in West Orange County that once had promising futures but, for some reason, failed to grow into full cities and towns. Many were wiped out in the 1894-95 freeze. Remnants of their past are still present along the West Orange Trail, in school names, on street signs and on neighborhood entrances.

Clarcona, just north of Ocoee, and Fuller’s Crossing, north of Winter Garden, likely started as nothing more than rail stops.

CLARCONA

Downtown Clarcona is basically the crossroads of Apopka-Vineland and Clarcona-Ocoee roads. The best description of Clarcona’s borders is the unincorporated areas of lakes, homes, pastures, nurseries, horse farms, citrus groves and woods between Pine Hills, Ocoee, Fairvilla and Apopka, according to one newspaper article.

Its earliest inhabitants were New England residents who were lured by the promise of free land; their farms in New Hampshire, Connecticut and Massachusetts were no longer at peak production, and they sought a better life in the South. The first, Nathaniel Barlow, homesteaded 160 acres. The second settler was W.N. Clark, who came in 1880.

The settlement continued to grow as more New Englanders moved in. Soon, two railroads — the Orange Belt (later called the Atlantic Coast Line) and Florida Midland — crossed through; and a Congregational Church, packinghouse, store, school, three-story hotel, turpentine still and sawmill were built.

Clark’s sawmill was a major employer in the area, and it is believed the community’s original name was Clark’s Corner — but it has evolved over the years.

Another popular thought is Clark’s Corner was shortened to Clarcona because there was another post office near DeLand by the same name. Clarcona got its own post office in 1887.

Clarcona was located at the junction of two railroad lines. Once trains left the Clarcona station, they either stopped at Millerton/Villa Nuova, Staten’s Crossing, Crown Point, Winter Garden, Tildenville and Oakland before rolling into Lake County, or they continued south through Ocoee and Gotha.

At one time, several lakes — now dried up — dotted the Clarcona area: Long, Alpharetta, Arlie, Trout and Cora Lee.

The Clarcona Improvement Association was established in 1966, initially in an effort to close down a dump on Damon Road opened by Orange County. The charter membership numbered 120. The residents won, and the county moved the dump. In its place is the 40-acre equestrian park, Clarcona Horse Park.

FULLER’S CROSSING

When locals hear the name Fuller, they most likely think of Fullers Cross Road, which unofficially has been called Dead Man’s Curve for decades. But Fuller’s Crossing once was a spot on the map where trains stopped to pick up citrus before continuing down the rail line.

In 1889, Dr. Wylie, Mr. Roland and J.B. Staten of Valdosta, Georgia, bought from the Hudson estate through Judge Speer several hundred acres of choice land, mostly hammock, along the shores of Lake Apopka, which they used in vegetable and citrus growing up to the time of the freeze of 1894-95.

John T. Fuller, formerly of Tennessee, was interested in buying property in Central Florida and found what he was looking for on acreage on the southeast shores of Lake Apopka. It was a place called Staten’s Crossing.

In 1903, Fuller purchased the plot of land for $10,000 from Erma C. Wiley, W.L. Thomas and Fannie R. Thomas, according to a legal document at the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation. The legal description mentions “the centre of a branch, or stream, known as Staten’s Branch” and also uses land markers such as a live oak tree to map the boundaries of the land.

The property, which became Fuller’s Crossing, ran along the edge of Lake Apopka.

Fuller’s citrus packing house — named John T. Fuller Packinghouse — was located on the railroad stop which, by then, bore the new name Fuller’s Crossing. Fullers Cross Road is the southern boundary of the Fuller property.

The purchase of the land included the right to lease an old packing house — located on the north side of the Orange Belt Railway — in an agreement with Wiley & Co. (or Wilie & Co.), of Titusville; Smythe & Co., orange packers, of Orlando; and the Banyard Brooker Co., of Staten’s (or Statens) Crossing. The document also included an agreement by the sellers to build a new packing house.

Fuller’s packing house was located at the intersection of the West Orange Trail (which was formerly the ACL rail line) and Fullers Cross Road, north of the Crown Point plat.

The structure stood just east of the Ocoee-Apopka Highway and immediately south of the railroad tracks.

According to an article in the Winter Garden Journal in 1933, there were 10 active citrus plants within a three-mile radius of Winter Garden, including the International Fruit Company, at Fuller’s Crossing.

After Fuller’s death, the property was sold to Standard Growers.

Today, the area is heavily forested in pine and scrub.

(All photos courtesy of the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation)

author

Amy Quesinberry

Community Editor Amy Quesinberry was born at the old West Orange Memorial Hospital and raised in Winter Garden. Aside from earning her journalism degree from the University of Georgia, she hasn’t strayed too far from her hometown and her three-mile bubble. She grew up reading The Winter Garden Times and knew in the eighth grade she wanted to write for her community newspaper. She has been part of the writing and editing team since 1990.

The topic of road safety — especially when it pertains to intersections in the city — has been a big topic of discussion among the Ocoee city commissioners.

In the commission’s most recent meeting Tuesday, April 20, commissioners heard from Humberto Castillero — the traffic engineering manager for Orange County.

Castillero updated the city regarding four-different intersections: (1) Dressage Drive at Apopka-Vineland Road; (2) Ingram Road at Clarcona-Ocoee Road; (3) McCormick Road at Ocoee-Apopka Road; and (4) McCormick at Apopka-Vineland/Clarcona Road. The numbers next to each given intersection were used to represent their priority.

“Unfortunately, this area — Central Florida — we’re No. 1 not only in the region, but in the state and in the nation in terms of fatalities,” Castillero said. “I believe that is not a title that we do not want to hold for so long, so we must be doing something.”

The process of putting in new signals and revamping an intersection is done in three phases. The first is a signal-warrant analysis, which generally takes 12 weeks and costs $8,000 to $12,000. That is followed by a six month-design stage that costs between $45,000 to $60,000, before the final stage of construction begins.

Construction alone requires about nine months to attain all the necessary materials — costing about $350,000 to $450,000. Luckily, Orange County has two construction contracts running to make things easier. It also takes six months lead time to receive the mast arm poles, Castillero said.

At Dressage Drive at Apopka-Vineland Road, the signal-warrant analysis and design costs for the T-intersection ($48,500) already are complete, and the next phase is working with contractors to receive a quote before anticipated construction begins this summer and ends in early 2022.

Meanwhile, the intersection at Ingram Road a Clarcona-Ocoee Road also has the first two steps complete — the design cost was $52,212 — and has a construction cost of around $328,000. For this intersection, the county is drafting a Joint Participation Agreement that will be reviewed by the city. If approved, the cost would be split 50/50, and the anticipated construction would begin in the fall.

Castillero noted the intersection of McCormick Road at Ocoee-Apopka Road has had the most issues with accidents.

“You have two gas stations, you have the Dollar General, you have the Subway shop and you have Ocoee-Apopka — that’s a major part of the corridor to some of the other roads, so there is a lot of traffic happening there,” he said.

The design cost for the full intersection was $45,000, with an estimated construction cost of $200,000 — it is set to begin construction in the spring of 2022. Originally, the county planned left-turn lanes, but because of the $1.4 million price of attaining the needed right-of-way, the county decided against it.

Finally, the signal-warrant analysis determined the left turns at the intersection of McCormick and Apopka-Vineland/Clarcona Road need to be widened. Design costs came in at $110,000, and the construction estimate totaled $1 million. There is no funding available for the project, but Castillero said it has been submitted to the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s project priority list.