signs Uptown

After our recent post on the new neighborhood & main street signs a reader asked us:

After reading your article on the neighborhood signs, I’ve started seeing them everywhere.  I saw Uptown had one of the signs. Is Uptown a neighborhood?

She is 100% correct Uptown is not a neighborhood. For those not familiar the Uptown area is the area just north of Colonial Dr. & Orange Ave. We reached out to City Commissioner Robert Stuart whose district includes the Uptown area:

With the emphasis on our business community and our main street districts, we have relaxed some of the “neighborhood” designations in the commercial areas.  A few years ago, as Craig Ustler moved in and some of the new condos/apartments began to spring up, they adopted the name “uptown” as opposed to downtown.  We don’t have any formal membership but all of us like the idea of delineating the area north of Colonial as many of the issues aren’t the same as Central or Church Street.  So, Uptown it is, for now.  And, with the growth of the residential components, I’m confident that it will create it’s own identity.
The signs were created, less for neighborhood classification, but more for community identity.  Uptown, like the name change to Ivanhoe Village, or Audubon Park Garden District, are great identifiers that help create a new sense of place…in a great city!

So while Uptown isn’t a current neighborhood or main street it’s probably on it’s way to becoming one or both.

Have a question about the bungalow neighborhoods that you would like to have answered? Contact us and we’ll look into it.

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  1. I don’t know if it will become a “Main Street” but maybe a “Market Street” like the Semoran district or some other non-affiliated merchant association. The mainstreet program is really a historic preservation initiative (get a strong business community invested in historic building stock and it’s much harder to demolish for new development.) and there isn’t much of that left in this area.