The City Council approved the funding application that would allow the Milk District to join the Orlando Main Street Program. We wrote about the possibility of the new addition back in June, HERE. To be considered eligible, the Milk District (Facebook) first had to raise $10,000, before being signed up for the City’s matching fund arrangement.
Milk District is the tenth Main Street District to join the program and will receive $50,000 in its first year of operations, after which each subsequent year the funding amount will drop to $0. The sliding scale is meant to push the programs to become more sustainable and self-funded. It is located in two City districts; District 2, under Commissioner Ortiz, and District 3, overseen by Commissioner Sheehan.
Notable businesses in the Milk District include: Beefy King, the Drunken Monkey, Market on South, Pom Pom’s Tea House, Milk Bar, Spacebar, Se7en Bites, and Crossfit Milk District. To see a map of the official Milk District boundaries, see our recent post on Main Street borders, HERE.
There will be a Milk District Main Street Part at 6:30 p.m. at the Tasty Tuesdays Food Truck gathering. Click HERE to see the Facebook event page.
Congratulations to the merchants, business owners, property owners, and residents of the Milk District. But I’m a little miffed at the City. I find it interesting regarding the bar the City set for them to be created. We’ve been trying to get a Main Street designation for the West Colonial Drive (Wesco) area for a couple of years. But we’ve been told again and again that there’s no money in the budget for another one. They told us we’d need to self fund it and completely self organize (incorporate, bylaws, board of at least 9 people [1/3 merchants, 1/3 residents, 1/3 property owners] and subcommittees, plus pay our own executive director) and function for at least two years with two signature events each year before the City would even consider maybe designating us as a Main Street. If we were told that all we had to do was raise $10,000 and then we’d get $50,000, we could have done the same thing a long time ago. Maybe once the Creative Village and the downtown UCF campus are open, we’ll be cool and hip enough to be considered. In the meantime, we’re on our own with no full time executive director, and West Colonial will continue to languish and be an eyesore while the property and business owners and residents continue to handle matters on their own with the help of Code Enforcement and the Police.
U0001f64c Yesss! Congratulations The Milk District!