For most of the last decade, Edgewater Drive has been the constant in College Park. Streetscape the same, tenant mix the same, the same slow drift of foot traffic between Princeton and Par. Residents who bought here in 2018 could walk out tomorrow and find nearly every storefront still holding its shape.
That ends this fall. Between November and the end of the year, a Greek taverna opens in a space that has been dark since summer 2024, an Argentine steakhouse begins its build-out ten blocks south, a proposed retail block puts up its first sign, and the city pulls the trigger on a $26 million road project that starts by rebuilding the intersection most residents use to enter the neighborhood. Any one of these on its own is a headline. Together they mark the first time in years The Drive is being reshaped physically and commercially in the same season.
The Intersection at Lakeview Goes First
The Edgewater Drive Complete Street plan has been sitting in city documents since the early 2000s. It stopped being theoretical in September, when the city hosted a public meeting on what it called Phase A: a roundabout at the intersection of Edgewater and Lakeview Street. The design will be finalized in the spring, with construction beginning at the end of 2026.
The project is not just a roundabout. On Tuesday, September 9, the city detailed the first phase of four, a $26 million plan for construction on and along Edgewater Drive. Slower driving is the goal, achieved through medians with trees and foliage, raised brick crosswalks, and wider sidewalks. The redesign runs from Lakeview Street to Par Street, adding sidewalk expansion, ADA compliance, and traffic calming.
What that means for a resident: the entrance to The Drive from the south becomes a construction zone through much of 2027, and Phases B, C, and D work northward in increments that the city has not yet dated. If you have been putting off the walk from Lake Ivanhoe up to Par for a few years, this fall is the last one where the street looks the way it does now.
Two Tables Arriving Between Princeton and Par
The most visible change is in the storefronts. Two restaurants with real operator histories are opening this year on Edgewater, and they are opening at opposite ends of the commercial strip.
At the north end, 3231 Edgewater Drive has been dark since The Local Bar and Grill closed on Friday, July 26, 2024. The replacement is Olea Taverna, a Greek and Mediterranean concept from Nazih Sebaali, owner of Meza Mediterranean Grill in Baldwin Park, and former owner of Cafe Annie, which operated out of downtown Orlando for almost 30 years. Sebaali told Orlando Shine the renovations were running behind, with more work than expected on the space and the air-conditioning system being reworked with the landlord. The build-out involves permits filed with the City of Orlando for extensive interior renovations, and the operator originally targeted early 2026 for opening.
Ten blocks south, at 2304 Edgewater Drive, the second one is arriving on a different timeline. Alma Argentina plans to open a new College Park restaurant at 2304 Edgewater Drive, owner Marisa Flores told Business Debut, alongside a new commissary kitchen in Casselberry; the College Park location will be the third for the brand. This year marks the fifth for Alma Argentina, which opened its first location in Oviedo and a second in Celebration. The menu focuses on steaks, homemade empanadas, milanesas, and other Argentine dishes, with each location including a small market area for Argentine packaged goods. Between the storefronts and catering, Flores estimates they sell 10,000 empanadas a month.
Read the two openings together and a pattern shows up. The Drive already had its Italian bench in Turci Pasta and Adriatico, its neighborhood bakery in Bang Bang Bakehouse, its seafood counter in The Current, its longtime diner in Christo's Cafe. What it did not have was Greek or South American. Sebaali and Flores are both experienced multi-unit operators moving into a corridor that has quietly graduated from "good enough" restaurants into a market that can support specialists.
The Sign at 1900-Something Edgewater
Then there is the sign. It went up in December on a parcel that is still, for the moment, doing business as usual. A new sign appeared along Edgewater Drive in College Park advertising a proposed redevelopment called Edgewater Market Gardens, marketed as a future retail and dining destination, with commercial listings projecting a Fall 2026 delivery.
The site is currently being marketed for lease by Pure Properties Group, though no tenants have been announced and there is no visible construction activity or publicly confirmed permitting timeline. Fall 2026 is the target, which feels optimistic if you've followed any redevelopment in our city.
That skepticism is worth carrying into any conversation about the parcel. The property is still home to operating businesses, including Form Function Form, which remains open as of publication. A sign is a leasing document, not a construction schedule. The relevant fact for residents is not that a new retail block is arriving this year. It is that a landlord is publicly testing the market for one, on a stretch of Edgewater where the city is about to spend $26 million to make the sidewalks wider. Those two facts are not unrelated.
November 6, From Smith to King
Before any of it starts, the street closes for a night. Edgewater Drive, from Smith to King, will be closed on Saturday, November 6, 2026 from noon to midnight for the twenty-fourth College Park JazzFest. Since 2002, the event has grown into The Drive District's signature evening, with three stages and 12 live bands spanning jazz, R&B, and rock. Admission is $15 per person in advance, $20 the day of.
For residents, the practical notes matter more than the marketing. There are eight entrance gates off Edgewater, and both College Park United Methodist Church and Church On The Drive may charge for parking. Bike or walk if you can, as on-street parking will be limited. If your block is inside the closure, plan grocery runs and dog walks around noon Saturday, not through it.
JazzFest is the closest thing College Park has to a hinge date. It is the last big event before Holiday on The Drive, and this year it sits directly in front of the roundabout construction that will change how you enter the neighborhood for the next stretch of time. That is not lost on the operators opening new rooms nearby.
What The Drive Is Actually Becoming
Put the four moves next to each other:
- A $26M streetscape rebuild starting at the southern gateway
- A Mediterranean operator taking the largest dark space on the north end
- A South American operator opening a third location ten blocks south
- A leasing sign for a new retail-and-dining block on a working parcel
The obvious read is "College Park is getting busier." The more honest read is that Edgewater is being repositioned by two different sets of actors at the same time. The city is engineering the street for slower cars, wider walks, and more time spent outside. Restaurant operators with real track records elsewhere in Central Florida are betting that engineering shows up. A landlord is testing whether a full block of new retail can follow.
None of that guarantees the timeline anyone has published will hold. Olea's build ran long. Edgewater Market Gardens has no permits visible. The city's later phases have no dates. Anyone who has watched Winter Park's Minnesota Row or Maitland's Trelago knows how these projects move.
What is not in question is that the fall of 2026 is the last quiet season before the visible work begins. If you live here, this is the fall to make a habit of the walk you keep meaning to take: north from Lake Ivanhoe, past the Kerouac cottage on Clouser, up through the block that will hold Alma Argentina, past The Current and Turci Pasta and Bang Bang, all the way to Olea's front door at 3231. The next time you make that walk end to end, the street underneath you will be a construction site, and then, eventually, something else.
If you are thinking about how any of this shapes what your home is worth on Edgewater, on Yale, or off Smith Street this year, I'd welcome the conversation. Drew Henner works with buyers and sellers across College Park and the surrounding Central Florida neighborhoods. Let's Connect.
