The City of Winter Park is eyeing up some funding from Orange County to test out providing WiFi as a utility for its residents.
The Community Development Block Grant program provides federal funding to
cities and counties for housing, economic opportunities, and public/non-profit capital
projects, for low- and moderate-income areas. The City of Winter Park has and continues to work with Orange County on applying these funds to eligible projects like a splash pad in Shady Park.
This year, City staff are submitting an application for financial support to fund a public WiFi area in the Denning Drive/MLK area that would stretch from Webster to Orange Avenue. Services would be expected to run at 3000 Mbps along the recently completed Denning Drive mixed-use path and in the adjacent Martin Luther King, Jr. Park where the new Winter Park Library and Events Center will be located.
This project is part of a greater undertaking by the City to provide free wireless access
throughout all of the City’s public facilities and major districts including the Park
Avenue and New England Avenue areas
The total cost of the project is valued at $125,000 and applicants will be notified in June 2021 if their applications have been accepted. If approved, the project would take 4-12 weeks to complete, according to the City of Winter Park, with a goal of having the entire Denning Drive mixed-use path corridor integrated with free wireless service by August 31, 2021.
