Low land prices create buzz to add county parks [Central Florida]
The rain clouds of the real-estate market have a silver lining for those who want more public baseball and soccer fields: cheaper land.
Orange County’s parks and recreation department has been scouting dozens of tracts 20 acres or larger across the county. The idea is to buy land at depressed prices and hold onto it until budgets allow for the development of more community parks with fields for youth sport leagues.
“Now’s the right time to buy land and bank it for later,” said parks director Matt Suedmeyer. Although Orange already has more than 90 parks, “most of them have hit capacity,” he said. “Our county is still growing.”
Real-estate agents say land prices in Central Florida are about 22 percent lower now than they were at the market’s peak in 2005 and 2006.