FY 2011-12 Adopted Budget - City of Oviedo

Frontier Town to BOOMTOWN!
Oviedo’s history is the fascinating frontier history of Central
Florida. During and af ter t he Civ il War period (1861-1869)
settlers to the area homesteaded or bought lan d in th e “Lak e
Jesup community”. Oviedo was fi rst settled mainly because of
its accessibility to Lake Jesup via a landing at Solary ’s Wharf.
The City received its name “Oviedo” in 1879 a fter the city in
northern Spain, from the postmaster
of the ne w post office, An drew
Aulin, a Swedish immig rant. Th e
City b egan to g row its ag ricultural
roots in th e la te 1 800’s with t he
establishment o f citru s farms and
flower nur series. No table horticulturists
and agricultural businessmen
having called Oviedo home include
Theodore L. Mead ( 1886), namesake
of Mead Gard ens lo cated in
Winter Pa rk, and Stee n Nelson,
founder of Nelso n and Company,
whose steel water-tower is still a
local l andmark i n downtown
Oviedo. A disastrous freeze in 1895
wiped out th e citru s indu stry and
prompted t he dev elopment of t he
celery and vegetable i ndustry. C elery
gr ew well in Ov iedo’s mucky,
rich tops oil and became Oviedo’s
primary crop and was shipped to all
parts of the United States. Despite
the uncertain clim ate, many citrus
growers rep lanted t heir cit rus
groves. The popular Temple Orange
was de veloped i n O viedo i n t he
early 190 0’s. In 191 4 a larg e fire
caused b y on e of the g as-lit lamps
that lined B roadway St. set ablaze
all six of Oviedo’s downtown buildings,
d estroying four of th e six
buildings. In 1 925 th e City o f
Oviedo was chartered by the Florida
State Legislat ure a nd inc orporated.
During World War II, the citrus and
celery industry in Oviedo flourished
and co ntributed t o u nprecedented
growth and devel opment i n the
area.
In 1963 nearby Florida Technological University was opened,
now known as th e University o f Cen tral Florida (UCF), th e
nation’s fifth largest university (53,000+ students) and one of
the coun try’s t op research un iversities. UCF is ho me t o the
Center for Research Optics and Lasers, (CREOL), the National
Simulation Cen ter (NSC) t he In stitute fo r Simulation and
Training (IST) and the College of Film and Digital Media.
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Seminole State College (SSC) of Florida, with four (4) Seminole
County ca mpuses is a full-service edu cation provider,
offering four-year degrees and t wo-year col lege-credit degrees.
T he O viedo cam pus opened i n Ja nuary 2001, with a
complement of college-credit, technical, continuing education
and personal enrichment class offerings.
Also con tributing to Oviedo’s n ascent tech nology clu sters are
the regions space related industri es, missile and defense industries
and t he regi ons e ntertainment, co mputer si mulation a nd
digital m edia in dustries. Lo cal
technology-based em ployers of
Oviedo resi dents i nclude Florida’s
Space Coast’s Kennedy Space Center
and its related industries, Lockheed
Martin, and the National Center
for Simulation.
Located a stride Central Florida’s
newest hi gh-technology c orridor,
SeminoleWAY, the City o f Oviedo
is p ositioned for dy namic busi ness
growth and s uccess. Seminole-
Way, a high-tech corridor along SR
417, is the northern portion of Orange
C ounty’s In novation Way,
links both O rlando an d Orlando-
Sanford In ternational Airports, the
University of C entral Florida, Or -
ange County’s new “Me dical City”
at Lake Nona, Seminole State College
an d t he Kennedy Sp ace Center.
T hese key com ponents co n-
tribute to th e bu rgeoning si mulation,
di gital media, m edical sci -
ences and photonic i ndustry clus -
ters gro wing in th e Ov iedo area.
The demographics of the communities
al ong SeminoleWAY s how a
region wi th the key components
possessed by est ablished technology
ce nters. The Sem inoleWay
area already possesses similar concentrations
o f ad vanced degree
residents and professionals, clusters
of t echnology-oriented c ompanies
and the higher e ducation a nd re -
search faci lities found i n
‘technology centers’, s uch as
Tempe, Ariz ona, Sa n Diego, California
and Austin, Texas.
Oviedo’s more traditional business community includes robust
retail, finance, real estate and insurance sectors. These provide
additional employment opportunities and the d aily services and
products utilized by residents, businesses and visitors. Whether
you a re a F ortune 500 c orporation, t echnology st art-up or a
“home-based” business, Ov iedo is fertile-ground to start, relocate
or grow your business.
Source: Oviedo Historical Society, 2009, www.oviedohs.com