Mission
To enhance and preserve the small business community, while nurturing the arts, culture, and ongoing development of our creative district.
Vision
The Milk District is a diversely dynamic neighborhood for locals that has become a draw for the region and a must-stop for visitors to get to know the city, a hive of creativity and culture in the heart of Orlando. The District strives to lead the region as home to authentic cultural experiences, destination dining, live entertainment, outdoor activities, and an innovative workforce. Through embracing its grassroots spirit and gritty character, The Milk District works side by side with independent businesses to foster community and human connections that impact all parts of daily life.
Cultural Equity
To support a full civic life for all, The Milk District commits to championing policies and practices of cultural equity that empower a just, inclusive, equitable community.
Read our Statement on Cultural Equity.
TRANSFORMATION STRATEGIES
Generated through meaningful community engagement and informed by an analysis of the district’s market position — help to guide a revitalization program’s work. An effective Transformation Strategy serves a particular customer segment, responds to an underserved market demand, or creates a differentiated destination.
From October 2020 - January 2021, The Milk District conducted a series of meetings, surveys, and discussions with residents, businesses, property owners, and visitors to form its transformation strategies and help focus its work for the years to come.
Through this process, The Milk District has identified the following strategies to guide its work.
Dining, Arts and Entertainment
Focuses on things people do for fun, usually in the evenings while supporting the artists and creative professionals that make The Milk District unique.
Health, Wellness, and the Environment
Pulls together retail, recreational, educational, and professional businesses and organizes them around improving people's wellbeing while pursuing environmentally friendly economy for The Milk District
TOURISTS + tourism
Leverages the unique places, people, and experiences in The Milk District to encourage people to visit The Milk District from elsewhere.
“Orlando's Milk District is the definition of authentic.”
Orlando Weekly
History
Long a commercial hub east of Downtown Orlando, The Milk District became the 10th district to join the Orlando Main Streets program in October of 2016.
We’ve built a community for artists, families and entrepreneurs to lay down their roots. Before we knew it, The Milk District was becoming a widely recognized cultural hub for Orlando through food, music, art and fashion.
Our district is founded on independence, and united as a group of small businesses with great ambitions. We’re more excited than ever to see what is in store for our community in the years to come.
Land Acknowledgement
The Milk District exists on unceded ancestral and traditional land of indigenous people many of whom lost their lives to genocide or were forced to leave their land. We recognize that this land remains scarred by the histories and ongoing legacies of settler colonial violence, dispossession, and removal. The land has been inhabited by the Timucua and Seminole tribes.
The Seminole people, are the descendants of many Native Americans who have inhabited Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and parts of South Carolina, Tennessee, and Mississippi for at least 12,000 years. They lived as hundreds of separate tribes when european colonists arrived in 1510. Over the last 500 years, however, as their descendants have endured diseases and warfare, the survivors of numerous Maskókî (Mass-co-Key) tribes grouped together in Florida, around a core of cimarrones (sim – a – rons)— refugees from the Spanish Florida missions. The Milk District is located inside the boundaries of the Seminole Reservation of 1823.
“A great community which embraces small business owners”
Trina Gregory-Propst | Se7en bites
The Main Street Approach
The Milk District operates under the four points of the Main Street approach. Time-tested and market-based, these strategies have lead revitalization in communities like our across the country.
ECONOMIC VITALITY
Focuses on capital, incentives, and other economic and financial tools to assist new and existing businesses, catalyze property development, and create a supportive environment for entrepreneurs and innovators that drive local economies.
DESIGN
Supports a community’s transformation by enhancing the physical and visual assets that set the commercial district apart.
PROMOTION
Positions the commercial district as the center of the community and hub of economic activity, while creating a positive image that showcases a community’s unique characteristics.
ORGANIZATION
Involves creating a strong foundation for a sustainable revitalization effort, including cultivating partnerships, community involvement, and resources for the district.
The milk district depends on volunteers IMPLEMENT this approach.
Board of Directors
Ben Kuykendall, President | First Capital Property Group & Resident
Angela Coullias, Vice-President | DLR Group & Resident
Carrie Manes, Secretary | DLR Group & Resident
Amanda Ward, Treasurer | Department of HUD
Michele Gibbs | City of Orlando
Mary McGinn | The Nook on Robinson & Resident
Mariah Lynn Roberts | The Memoir Agency & Resident
Pom Moongauklang | Pom Pom's Teahouse and Sandwicheria
Julie Matura, Vice President | University of Central Florida & Resident
Sam Venus | AdventHealth
Cody Arkadie | True Design Studios & Resident
Alan Bjork | Resident
Tom Moench | Orange Blossom Brewing Co. & Resident
Alex Spock | Atrium Capital Group & Resident
Executive Director
Angie Folks
Volunteer
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