Winter Park/Maitland Observer – Wide sidewalks, windowed storefronts and arching shade trees line Independence Lane. The “festival street” weaves its way from George Avenue all the way down to Lake Lily, with offshoots of bike trails and the pedestrian-friendly roadway weaving from a bustling park by City Hall down to the lakefront.
That could be the future of downtown Maitland, said Blake Drury, director of planning and urban design for GAI Consultants Community Solutions Group, the firm tasked with updating Maitland’s downtown master plan for the first time in more than a decade.
Residents got their first view of the new master plan draft in a meeting in City Hall last week. Drury painted a picture of a downtown focused primarily on a business-fronted Independence Lane, and connecting the road south to Lake Lily and west to the Maitland Art Center and Lake Sybelia.
