The fruits of Celebration

When Disney started developing Celebration, it called on nationally known architects to design many of the downtown buildings. At Baldwin Park, by contrast, famous architects haven’t been needed. One of the reasons is that over the past several years, central Florida has developed a pool of local design and planning talent, much of it nurtured by years of work at Celebration, says Baldwin Park Managing Director David Pace, who previously led real estate development at Celebration. Designers from far away prepared the pattern books for Celebration, Pace notes, but “the people who actually used those books were local.” They became passionate about mastering New Urbanism and creating good traditional buildings, he says. So when the time came to refine the plans for Baldwin Park (after initial work by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), much of it could be done by the central Florida planning and engineering firm of Miller, Sellen, Conner & Walsh in conjunction with Pace and others. Nonetheless, there are still some firms from outside the area, such as Memphis-based Looney Ricks Kiss, which is working both at Baldwin Park and at Celebration. One especially pleasing building at Baldwin Park is the Enders Park Community Center, designed by Geoffrey Mouen, an architect based in Celebration. At the Restoration & Renovation Conference in Boston on April 22, 2004, Mouen received the Palladio Award from Traditional Building magazine for the community center, which has two symmetrical wings joined by a classical arcade, cupola, and clock. Mouen, who previously worked for Robert A.M. Stern Architects, adapted the design from the nearby Winter Park Country Club and from Sir Edwin Lutyens’ Plumpton Place in England. Mouen also designed a second, larger community center that will be built in Baldwin Park, and he is architecture and urban design consultant to the Town of Jupiter, Florida. “I think central Florida is becoming an area that expects higher standards in architecture,” Pace says. “Previously I would have ranked it dead last. A lot of people come here because it’s cheap,” he says, but an increasing number of people are looking for design quality. “It’s nice to see.”