City of Winter Park Commissioners voted unanimously last week to pay $4 million for a one-acre property on the corner of Denning Drive and Fairbanks Avenue. And the businesses located there don’t have a bright future.
Those businesses include none other than beloved Austin’s Coffee and the Michelin-starred Soseki restaurant. That’s right, the restaurant by Michael Collantes described by Michelin as an “intimate operation” that is a “prime example of an omakase that blends traditional and contemporary elements seamlessly.”
The City of Winter Park wants to demolish the buildings on the site so it can expand the adjacent Marlin Luther King Jr. Park and add a traffic lane to Fairbanks to help ease traffic at the intersection.
All leases on the property will be kept as-is, but the option to extend them isn’t likely. Collantes shared with Beth Kassab of Winter Park Voice that he had invested over $1 million into the property, which is also home to his Bar Kada concept and the upcoming return of Perla’s Pizza. Collantes also shared with Kassab that he currently has lease options through 2035.
The property is also home to Nail Alchemy and the recently-ish closed Winter Park Collective. Mayor Sheila DeCiccio has publicly stated that she has no interest in terminating any of the leases.
