Land Use Tours
Saturday, September 29th – 2:00PM to 5:00PM
Advance registration is required and the tours typically fill quickly. If you would like to add the tour to your registration, please email info@imla.org. There is an additional cost.
Lake Nona Tour
Lake Nona Medical City
The introduction of Lake Nona Medical City was perhaps one of Orlando’s defining moments, putting the 650-acre health and life sciences park on the map as one of America’s premier locations for medical care, research and education. In the next decade, Lake Nona Medical City will be home to some of the nation’s top hospitals, universities, research institutions and life science companies, transforming Orlando into a global destination for health care.
Medical City is anchored by the Orlando Veterans Affairs Medical Center, GuideWell Innovation Center, the future UCF Lake Nona Medical Center, UCF Health Sciences Campus and College of Medicine, Nemours Children’s Hospital, University of Florida Research & Academic, Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute and Lake Nona Physicians Plaza.
Come see Orlando’s emerging Medical City at Lake Nona firsthand, with stops at the UCF College of Medicine, Boxi Park, and Laureate Park (a New Urbanist neighborhood with a Modernist twist). The tour will also include looks at the 1.2 million square foot VA Medical Center, University of Florida Academic and Research Center, and Nemours Children’s Hospital. This one-of-a-kind cluster of clinics, classrooms and laboratories is revolutionizing America’s healthcare landscape and the entire Central Florida economy.
Move Nona, a new approach to transportation
Lake Nona is not only a landmark for growing health care technologies — this community is leading the charge when it comes to being a hub for the future of transportation and creating a one-of-a-kind mobility network throughout all of its 17-square miles. With the goal of connecting people to places with less dependency on automobiles, Lake Nona is investing in a number of alternative modes of mobility, including its Move Nona autonomous vehicle initiative and the construction of America’s first high-speed, electric air vertiport mobility hub.
Move Nona is a new approach to transportation, providing Lake Nona residents and visitors with a variety of efficient and interconnected ways to get around. As part of this initiative, Lake Nona engaged Beep! to introduce the region’s first autonomous vehicle network and create what is now the largest and longest-running single-site autonomous vehicle fleet in the country. And, using funds from the federal BUILD grant, Lake Nona’s autonomous network and infrastructure will be expanded from 1.2 miles to more than 25 miles of dedicated AV lanes in the future.
Operating daily, each shuttle holds up to 10 passengers and operates at a maximum speed of 15 miles per hour. Though the shuttles are driverless, a Beep attendant accompanies the shuttles. Currently, the cost to ride the shuttles is covered by Lake Nona and Beep! and operate on fixed routes with different stops throughout the community.
Purpose: The purpose of the tour is to describe how the City of Orlando partnered with Lake Nona, Orange County, the University of Central Florida, the University of Florida, and other private entities to create the Medical City employment center, to examine the anticipated impacts of a bio-medical cluster on the Orlando region, and to show how Smart Growth and New Urbanist principles have been integrated into the overall vision for the area.
Lake Nona: Other Key Talking Points for Consideration
- Located in the southeast sector of Orlando adjacent to the Orlando International Airport lies Lake Nona, a 17-square-mile master-planned community developed by Tavistock Development Company that has established a new standard of living with groundbreaking initiatives that integrate technology, mobility, health and wellbeing.
- Lake Nona is referred to as a living lab, with some of the following as examples:
- Verizon 5G Innovation Hub and community wide highspeed 5G network
- First gigabit community in Florida with 30,000+ miles of fiber cable providing high-speed internet
- Country’s largest and longest-running single site autonomous vehicle fleet
- Lake Nona Wave Hotel is the most technologically advanced hotel in the world
- Home to businesses big and small including Johnson & Johnson, KPMG, University of Central Florida, U.S. Tennis Association, Verizon and a burgeoning community of entrepreneurs
- Hub for leading health and life sciences companies, academic programs and research organizations, or as we know it, Lake Nona Medical City
Attracting companies from across the globe
With its ahead of its time technologies and success, Lake Nona is attracting companies from across the globe to relocate in our city. In 2017, KPMG, one of the fastest growing Big Four professional services firms broke ground on KPMG Lakehouse, its 55-acre, 800,000 square foot Learning, Development, and Innovation facility in the heart of Lake Nona, serving as a testament to the areas growing reputation as a destination where corporate headquarters thrive. The Leaning, Development, and Innovation facility is now open, with more than 300 employees and 40,000 visitors from across the globe doing business in the facility each year.
Recently, KPMG doubled down on its commitment to Lake Nona by announcing the expansion and development of their state-of-the-art Capability Center, which will create another 350 new-to-Florida jobs and stimulate our local economy with employees shopping in our stores, dining in our restaurants and enjoying an abundance of other amenities.
Lake Nona’s neighborhoods: A place where life happens
Lake Nona is more than its technologies, life sciences and destination for global headquarters — it’s a place where life happens. Lake Nona is home to an array of residential neighborhoods with new construction, single-family homes of all styles — from bungalows to cottages, to multistory homes — all of which have a unique vibrancy.
Residents have access to amenities and attractions, such as Boxi Park, the Lake Nona Town Center, Nona Adventure Park, community gardens, and one-of-a-kind dining and retail. Families can enjoy a bike ride, walk or jog on one of the community’s extensive trails, and stop at Crescent, Laureate or Heroes Community Park for a short break, picnic or a game of catch. Whoever you are, there’s something for you to enjoy in the eclectic, community-oriented Lake Nona.
