KEEPING THE NEWS LOCAL & THE COMMUNITY CONNECTED.
FALL 2022
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How Would You Like to Grow? A look into how traditional neighborhood developments turn your town into a home.
By Raven Halle
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COMMUNITY UPDATES
VOLUME 3 EDITION 2
Developing cities often find themselves having to answer the question, “how should we continue to grow?” Due to developmental pressures, not growing at all is rarely an option; in turn, places face a choice between growing through implementing the principles of conventional suburban development and the principles of traditional neighborhood development. In a few words, and in favor of the latter, the traditional neighborhood developments are perhaps best captured by architect Jan Gehl’s statement that “life takes place on foot.” Traditional neighborhood developments, which are often unique to their location and serve as prototypes for other traditional neighborhood developments, are displays of what residential areas can become when the focus is placed on people rather than on industry. The key to understanding the influence of traditional neighborhood developments lies in their identity as mixeduse developments, meaning that they are a blend of the residential, the commercial, and the environmental. This mixed-use approach to planning offers something different from the traditional ideas of suburbia; where mixed-use fosters connections through an emphasis on the pedestrian, other single-use developments may rely on vehicular modes of transportation to create the same. but often lesser connections. Again, in traditional neighborhoods, “life takes place on foot:” while your children walk to school, you can walk to the grocery store; step out of your apartment building’s elevator and be immediately between the wine bar and the dance studio; go to your dental appointment and then the eye doctor across the street; walk your mother from the assisted-living facility to the pool for a summer’s day swim. This is what it means to be a walkable place; to be a town. First, let’s go back around 80 years to life in America after World War II. During this period, things such as the GI Bill, the baby boom, the increased affordability of automobiles, and the large-scale housing projects built on the outskirts of existing cities contributed to what we call “urban sprawl,” or the migration of folks from big cities to single-family homes often separated by roads, landscaping, and long expanses of land. These ideas might conjure within us the iconic rhetoric of the “American Dream,” or the notion of 2.5 children, a pet, and a picket-fence. While this long-surviving concept was first an item of praise and then a sign of conformity, early suburbia’s promise of a cookie-cutter life personified a sort of affluence that became highly attractive to the generation who had recently survived two world wars and the Great Depression. So, after the war, the industries which had mobilized the Allied victory turned their focus inward to propel the previously mentioned and eventual causes of urban sprawl. Among the many detriments to come from this—like the loss of agricultural lands, an increase in distance between home,
work, and leisure places, and an increase in pollution due to distance—is the loss of a sense of place, or, as coined by James Howard Kunstler, “the geography of nowhere.” This is, in the last 20 years, perhaps what traditional neighborhood developments have most sought to change: turning “nowhere” into “somewhere.” And they have done just that. To create an analogy, creating a town for planners is like making a cake to bakers. Suburbia has the ingredients: people, houses, sometimes community centers, cars, and roads which lead the cars out of the neighborhood to the desired destination—work, school, the grocery store, church, piano lessons. To bakers, this is the equivalent of eggs, butter, flour, sugar, and utensils lined up on the table. But to bake a cake, the ingredients must be more than present—they must be mixed. So, too, do the ingredients of the suburbs need to be combined to create a town. In the simplest of terms, this comparison displays the difference between a conventional suburban development and a traditional neighborhood development. When people, houses, businesses, schools, roads, and parks are integrated—the “mixed” in “mixed-us —” a town is born. This is the creation of “somewhere,” a place not isolated by gates or roads but open and accessible to all. Again, traditional neighborhood developments do not necessarily subscribe to the cookie-cutter homes of the suburbs: a doctor can live next door to a teacher; a lawyer down the hall from an author. And, further again, a town is sustainable and self-contained in that most immediate needs can be met without having to commute. Ultimately, the concentration of homes and necessary establishments forges a sense of connection, better-allowing things like the stimulation of the local economy through shopping small businesses and supporting the community through events such as annual holiday celebrations. A town’s sense of connection and community is certainly facilitated by its residents, but on a more basic level, it is first rendered by the careful planning and construction on the part of its developers. For a town to be a successful pedestrian-oriented development, many complex design and planning problems must be addressed. For a town to be effective, “synergies,” or positive relationships between multiple agents must be created and designed to work both vertically and horizontally. Synergies in a traditional neighborhood development be seen in vertical mixed-use buildings, such as those that have apartments above shops and offices. This is an example of one of the many characteristics of a traditional neighborhood development—also including a variation in housing type, a well-planned and connected system of streets, and conveniences such as places of worship, parks, schools, and pools—all of which will be discussed in a later series of articles revolving around traditional neighborhood developments.
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Coffee Hour with BEAT
I am cruising over the Atlantic, on my way from Zurich to Chicago, 10-hour flight today, and plenty time to think about our business plan over the last 25 years, and the next 25 years... 25 years ago, in the fall of 1997, Avalon Park Group, broke ground on Avalon Park Orlando, at the time in the middle of nowhere, nobody lived within a 3 miles radius of Downtown Avalon Park. Today there are more than 60,000 people that live, learn work and play within that same 3-mile radius, representing around 5% of Orange County. It was not easy. We had to take out a bridge loan from a bank to build the bridge over the tributary of the Econ River at the entrance of the community. What started out as being just a bridge, turned into what is now Avalon Park Boulevard. When Joe Lambert, the Banker from Regions Bank asked his colleagues to approve the loan, he told them, “Well we are being asked to finance a bridge which is going nowhere.” The loan did get approved and later paid back and plans for the main boulevard through the community began. These days, I am often asked 3 questions: 1. How much profit has Avalon Park made since breaking ground in 1997? 2. When will you retire? 3. Will we have a recession and how does that affect what Avalon Park Group is doing now and what I should be doing now? Here are my answers: 1. I do not think it would be right to measure the profit of the Avalon Park Orlando development in dollars and cents, there is so much more to it. Sometimes I answer the question by taking the person who wants to know on a tour of Avalon Park. I start at the
entrance to Avalon Park from Alafaya Trail. From there I drive around for about 1 hour, where they see the bridge, Founder’s Square, Downtown Avalon Park, Avalon Elementary School, Timber Creek High School, Stone Lakes Elementary school, Avalon Park Middle School, Avalon Pinecrest Elementary Charter School, Live Oak Park, and the community swimming pools. I continue to drive by Encore the Assisted Living and Memory Care community, several thousand single family homes, the 24 Restaurants and so much more. We eventually end up at the entrance again and I explain how twenty-five years ago we started right there with nothing but a cow pasture, so everything you saw is profit. Profit for many stakeholders, homeowners, students, Orange County, business owners, and yes for Avalon Park Group.
2. I am a spiritual man and use the Bible as my guide. You will not find the term retirement in the Bible; therefore, it is not my intention to ever retire. Additionally, you will not find the word retire in an entrepreneur’s vocabulary. There is an ongoing, unwritten “job description” that changes over time. With experience and age I am prouder than ever of my team. I am able to rely on them and do not have to be in the know of everything going on any given time 24/7 around the globe. Avalon Park Group’s main asset is not an asset one can sell in the stock market or through a broker, it is a team. Led by 7 top managers, an executive vice president and senior vice presidents, many other managers around the globe, and all of our team members. Our manager in Kuala Lumpar office in Malaysia, Ravi Kumar just spent 3 months in the APG corporate office in Orlando. He provided a report to me regarding our headquarters, and while he had many great things to say, he felt our senior management team is “too old.” We checked and the average age of the top management is 48 years. Ha, of course if you are 29 years old, somebody like me is really old. I am proud of the diversity in our group, in age, nationality, gender and personality. We consider the team our business family and one does never retire from its Family. 3. On Wednesday of last week the FED Chairman announced another 0.75% interest rate increase. He also said, “In my opinion the US economy is not yet in a recession.” Just one day
later, it was announced that the GDP shrank by 0.9%, annualized in the second quarter and in the first quarter the GDP growth was -1.6%. That means the GDP fell for 2 consecutive quarters, hence we are in technically in a recession.
is when you can sell at a profit. When things are not so good it is generally the time to buy. For instance, we bought 3,000+ acres in Daytona Beach in the middle of the worldwide pandemic lock down, exactly 2 years ago.
In business for around 4 decades, I have seen a few recessions, interest rates well above 10%, banks going under, companies declaring bankruptcy, and sadly homeowners losing their homes to foreclosure. I think the most important advice would always be: Think long term! I believe most economical turmoil could be spared, if the business, government and private sector would adhere to a long-term thinking mindset.
So, what is APG doing now?
When you look today at your investment portfolio it is likely that it has lost value since the beginning of 2022. Your home may have a lower value than it did 7 months ago. However, it is very likely, even with inflation adjusted (which we all feel is high at present) when you look back 10 years, the value of your home and investments have still grown at a considerable rate in Central Florida over that time. There is the old saying “buy low and sell high,” a rule best practiced by a long-term view and not selling when many want to and buying when few do. The APG group as well has been selling assets over the last 12 month and realizing profits. I learned over the decades; entrepreneurs often are not prepared to sell when times are too good to be true. Quite the opposite in good times they build, buy and acquire more and more. We sold Avex Homes, apartment buildings and stock participations in the last 12 month. Times were good and that
Short answer: A LOT, but we are being careful. I think it is not the time to sell or yet the time to buy. However, if you think about the next 25 years, and not just for a profit in the next quarter, you will do business and private investments differently. Here are just a few things we are working on: -Last month we broke ground on a $23 million, 73,000 SF mixed use building in Avalon Park Wesley Chapel, North of Tampa. Upon completing it will have a Marketplace, similar to the one in Avalon Park Orlando, retailers, offices and apartments. -We continue building lots for single family homes and townhomes in Wesley Chapel, Tavares and the Suburbs of San Antonio Texas. -Several projects are underway in Switzerland, from developing an entire neighborhood in Liestal, near Basel, to building a grocery store in the same area. -We have increased our stake in VOXX International to over 25%. -We manage, supervise, control or co-control a group of companies with over $1.5 billion in assets, with close to 1,500 team members, in 20 countries on 5 continents. It will take us another 25 years, and then I hope there is yet another 25 years to plan after that. However, we never forget that everything started with that bridge from Alafaya Trail into Avalon Park Orlando, 25 years ago.
GET IN TOUCH - Have an inclusion for the Avalon Park Sun? Email: info@AvalonParkSun.com - Editorial Staff: Publisher: Beat Kahli Content Editor: Stephanie Lerret Graphic & Layout Editor: Kenzie Farrish 407.658.6565 3801 Avalon Park East Blvd. #400 Orlando, FL 32828
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LEARN Pinecrest Academy Tavares
Pinecrest educators attended “House Con” to help elevate school climate and culture! Educators from Pinecrest Academy Tavares Charter School traveled to Atlanta’s Ron Clark Academy to attend House Con 2022, an interactive professional development national conference about the RCA House System. Participants observed live classes in action and attended dynamic workshops that focused on RCA’s proven methods for creating a positive climate and culture for students and staff through the House System. During this immersive, hands-on experience, teachers and administrators gained the valuable and practical strategies to bring back and engage students, promote academic excellence, foster meaningful relationships, and create a climate and culture that promotes achievement for the entire Pinecrest Academy Tavares community. In addition to engaging directly with RCA’s students during instruction and outside the classroom setting, hundreds of educators from around the country closely interacted with the Academy’s accomplished team of educators. Collectively, this award-winning staff uses their combined years of educational experience and expertise to teach dynamic techniques that House Con participants can immediately implement into their respective schools. “This year’s national House Con was a record-breaking attendance year, and we are so honored to have hosted the enthusiastic staff from Pinecrest Academy Tavares. I’m so excited to see what strategies they bring back and implement,” shared Kim Bearden, RCA cofounder, executive director, and language arts teacher. “The energy and sense of community is palpable at
RCA! I am hoping to bring that back to Pinecrest and make this the best year yet!” said Amber Clifford, an Administrative Assistant and staff leader of the house of Reveur. “The Ron Clark Academy is to education what Disney World is to amusement parks: once you have been made aware of their system, you wonder how to bring that magic with you wherever you go!” Our staff is excited to implement a K-8 house system beginning with the 2022-2023 school year. Both students and parents will be given more information in the weeks to come. Thank you for your patience and support as we embark on this exciting new adventure together. To learn more about the Ron Clark Academy’s professional development experience, visit https://ronclarkacademy.com/professional-development/ About the Ron Clark Academy The Ron Clark Academy is a highly acclaimed, nonprofit middle school located in southeast Atlanta. The Academy has received both national and international recognition for its success in educating students with passion and creativity. The school’s 4th – 8th-grade students represent various socio-economic and academic backgrounds; however, RCA seeks to extend its reach beyond its student body by having an impact on students everywhere. In the past 15 years, more than 100,000 educators and administrators from 50 states and 26 countries have participated in RCA’s immersive professional development program, The RCA Experience (RCA EXP). Through this program, numerous schools and educators have received exemplary strategies on how to introduce engaging teaching methods, promote academic excellence, build relationships, and create a passionate climate and culture. For more information about the RCA House System and House Con, please visit www. rcahousesystem.com.
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Tavares Chamber Update
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Beat the Heat: Combating Burnout all, he cautions that that is only a “temporary fix”. Consider how you may tackle burnout in three steps:
cause you matter.
3. Passion projects or novelty – Work is work, Here are three things to consider to help you but doing something we are passionate about turn down the heat as allows our brains to you walk through the reconnect with positive steps to combat burn• First, identify the emotions including joy out: underlying cause(s) of and hope. Rebooting your exhaustion. For Summer has officialcan happen by simply 1. Daily refueling – most people, there is ly arrived in Florida, Identify what helps you shaking things up. New not a single cause but which means it’s heatactivities have been recharge or refuel and rather a long list of ing up outside. Please incorporate it into your shown to boost our things contributing to make certain that you daily routine. Self-care dopaminergic activity exhaustion. Actively are staying hydrated is a critical component. in the brain which is naming and acknowlbut also make certain associated with motivaedging the cause is you are monitoring tion and rewards. It can 2. Weekly pauses – your internal tempera- important if you want provide a temporary Marking the end of a to put an end to the ture. week to literally exhale reset. “burn” it creates. all that happens can With kids home from Make sure this summer allow oneself to not • Second, identify school, work obligayou are checking the only breathe and be tions, and the economy what is controllable present but to live fully. external temperature and what is not. If it making it challenging Breaking life into small and your internal one. is out of your control, to go on a much-needBeat the heat and prechunks is part of makyou will need to sured summer vacation, vent burnout! ing it all less scary or render it, move on, or it isn’t just sunburn learn to live in a health- overwhelming as you and dehydration we ier way with the issue. tackle it. need to worry about The truth is that there but life BURNOUT, is more that we are in too. According to the American Psychological control of than we often Association Dictionary want to admit. Taking of Psychology, burnout control sounds good is defined as “physical, and easy, but if it were easy we wouldn’t be emotional, or mental where we are so we exhaustion accompanied by decreased mo- need to remember to be gentle with ourselves. tivation, lowered performance, and negative attitudes towards one- • And finally, make choices and make self and others.” changes - lasting changes. As I said, some While burnout may things are not “fixnot be a true “medable”, so tough choices ical” condition, it is will need to be made very real. According - but that is where real to psychologist Adam Borland, PsyD, “We’re change begins. Help yourself to make choicliving in an incredibly stressful time and burn- es and give yourself out is incredibly preva- permission to be and lent.” And though you breathe. It’s okay to not may think a three-week take care of everyone or everything else so you vacation on the beach to decompress will fix it can focus on YOU be-
Coming together to create a healthy community
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