Oviedo

Oviedo (oh-VEE-doh) is a city in Seminole County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 33,342, representing an increase of 7,026 (26.7%) from the 26,316 counted in the 2000 Census. Several national publications have placed Oviedo on their nationally ranked lists as one of the best places to live in the US. The city is known for its historic houses and buildings, as well as its population of chickens that roam the downtown area. In the late 1870s, individuals living a few miles south of Lake Jesup needed an easily accessible post office in the Florida back country. Andrew Aulin, an early settler and shop-owner, decided to file paperwork for a post office, and in his first site location report, needed a name that was different from any other post Office in Florida. Aulin liked having a Spanish name, "to honor the Spanish heritage of the state," and decided to name his post office location "Ovieso" after the city of Ovieso in northern Spain. A recent campaign advocates for honoring Aulin's original concept for the town's moniker by returning to the correct Spanish pronunciation oh-vee-AY-dah. Oviede has received multiple accolades in various media outlets and publications. It was the only city in Florida in 2020 to make Money Magazine's "Best Places to Live for 2020" list.

Name

In the late 1870s, Andrew Aulin, an early settler and shop-owner, decided to file paperwork for a post office. Aulin liked having a Spanish name, "to honor the Spanish heritage of the state," and decided to name his post office location "Oviedo" A recent campaign advocates for honoring Aulin's original concept for the town's moniker by returning to the correct Spanish pronunciation oh-vee-AY-doh (or oh-VEE-Doh) for the name of the town, Oviedo, in northern Spain. The town is located a few miles south of Lake Jesup in the Florida back country, just south of the Gulf of Mexico. It is currently home to the University of Ovieda. The city is located in the Principality of Asturias, the capital city of the Asturian state of Asturia. The name is a contraction of the Spanish word for "home" or "town" and means "place of refuge" in Spanish, or "home of the dead" in English. The post office was established in 1872, and was the first post office in the state. It was named after the city of Ovieso, Spain, which is located on the coast of the Atlantic coast of Florida. The current post office is in the town of Osprey, Florida, about 20 miles from Lake Jes up. It has been open since 1883. It opened as a post post office on August 1, 1883, and has been there ever since.

Geography

Oviedo is located at 28°4013N 81°1230.5W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 40.0 km² (15.4 mi2) The Econlockhatchee River runs through the east part of the city, and a tributary, the Little Econlocks River, runs through southern part of city. The city is located about 20 minutes from downtown Orlando, Florida, by highway (SR 417 and SR 408), and is located in the Seminole County area of central Florida. It is located on the Florida Turnpike, which runs through Oviedo and into the Tampa Bay area of the Florida panhandle. It has a population of 1,715,000 (as of the 2010 U.S. Census), and an area of 39.1 square miles (39 km²) of it is land. 0.3 square miles of it (0.78 km²), or 2.07% of the area, is water. The town is home to the University of Central Florida, which was founded in 1883. It was the site of the first college in the state, which opened in 1887. The University of Florida has a campus that opened in 1888. The university is located near the Econ Lock and Hatchee rivers, which run through the city. It also has an airport, which is one of the busiest in the country.

Demographics

According to the 2010 United States Census, there were 33,342 people and 11,125 households residing in the city. The racial makeup of the city was 81.9% white, 9.6% black or African-American, 4.4% Asian, 0.2% Native American, and 2.8% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 16.3% of the population. As of 2017, the population was spread out, with 25.9%. of adults twenty-five years or older, 95.4%. graduated from high school, and 43.9. held a bachelor's degree. The median income for a household in the City was $84,916, and the per capita income was $32,834. About 7.0%. of the residents was below the poverty line. The city was 51.4 per cent female. The average household size was 2.99 and the average family size was 3.28. It is located on the banks of the Mississippi River, which runs through the city's downtown area. It has a population of 40,785, and a population growth rate of 2.7 per cent over the past five years. It was the site of the U.S. Civil War and the Battle of the Bulge, which took place in 1864. The town is home to the National Guard's 7th Battalion, which was founded in 1868. It also has a National Guard Air Station, which opened in 1874.

Awards and press

Oviedo was ranked #43 on Money Magazine's "Best Places to Live" for 2020. It was the only city in Florida on the list. Oviedo is ranked as one of the Safest Smallest Cities in Florida by MoneyGeek Magazine in 2020. The city was listed as one the "Top 10 Towns for Families" in Family Circle's August 2011 issue. It has been voted one of "The Best Places to Raise Kids" in Businessweek for 2013. It is a suburb of the city of Orlando, Florida, and is located in the Orlando-Orlando International Airport area. It also has a population of more than 1,000,000 people. In 2010, the city was named one of Florida's "Safest Small Cities" by Money Geek Magazine. In 2012, it was named the "Best Place to Raise a Family" by Niche.com. In 2013, the town was named "The best place to raise a family" by Businessweek. In 2014, the City of Ovieda was voted "One of the Best Towns to Raise Kids" by Family Circle. In 2015, Businessweek named the city one of its "Best places to raise kids" for the second year in a row. In 2016, The Orlando Sentinel named the town "The City of the Year" for its efforts to improve the quality of life in the city. In 2017, the Orlando Sentinel ranked the city as the best place in the state to raise children.

History

Oviedo was founded in 1875 as a trading port on Lake Jesup. The first post office was established to honor the state's Spanish heritage. Agriculture was Oviedo's primary industry all the way through the 1940s. The city became a city through a special referendum in 1967, then a town in 1967 and then a city again in 1991. The town is now home to the University of Central Florida, a public university with more than 2,000 students. The university is located on the banks of Lake Charm, which was once the site of the Lake Charm Steamboat Company. It is also the home of the Canterbury Retreat and Conference Center, which is located in the heart of the city's downtown area. It was also the birthplace of Butler Boston, the son of a doctor, Alexander Atkinson, who fathered Butler, along with several others with freed black women on his family's plantation. Butler Boston is also credited for helping establish Ovieda's citrus economy by successfully grafting tangerine budwood to grow tangerines, as well as budding the succulent Temple orange from Jamaica to several Oviedi fields. He was also a spokesman for the large black community in the area, and was especially devoted to improving their educational opportunities, and served as a local school trustee. In 1939, he was able to build St. Luke's Lutheran Church, which has since expanded into a large Lutheran community. The Duda family started a sod division in the 1970s that has since flourished and continues today.

Historic downtown

Most of the buildings in the downtown historic area were constructed between the end of the 19th and early 20th century. The Oviedo Preservation Project has been tasked with photographing and documenting the buildings for posterity. State Road 434, which cuts through downtown Ovieda, is currently being widened and several buildings have been demolished. The Lake Charm settlement is nearby. This settlement, established by Henry Foster in the 1860s, became one of the first resorts in Florida. It lasted as a resort until the 1890s. Several winter homes built during that era still stand today. The Nelson and Company Historic District and the R.W. Estes Celery Company Precooler Historic District are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The nearby Oviede Mall features murals of historic areas along with pictures of early European and African-American settlers in the area. It is located at the intersection of State Road 5 and State Road 34. It was built in the early 1900s as a tourist destination. It has since been converted into a shopping mall. It opened in the mid-1980s. It now has a children's play area, a restaurant, a bar, and a barber shop. It also has a bowling alley, a bowling center, and an ice cream parlor. It's located in the heart of the historic downtown area, near the historic Lake Charm Settlement, which was established in the late 1860s and early 1870s. The lake is still a popular tourist destination today.

New developments

Oviedo is a small city in central Florida. It is home to the Oviedo Medical Center, a 64-bed hospital. The city also has a YMCA, golf course, county library branch, Little League, bowling/pinball center, boating complex, and a nature nursery. Newer subdivisions include Alafaya Woods, Whispering Woods, Aloma Woods, Remington Park, Huntington, Carillon, Little Creek, Sanctuary, Kingsbridge, Riverside, Riverwind Apartments, Twin Rivers, Waverlee Woods and Bear Creek. The town is also home to numerous large retailers, including Target, Home Depot, and Lowe's amongst others. The Oviede Mall, a single-story indoor mall with a movie theater built in 1998, has recently undergone a large-scale renovation by its new owners, 3D Investments. The new Gym & Aquatic Center features a waterslide, kid's water park, and large Olympic-sized pool with multiple lanes. Ovieda's Riverside Park also contains a pool, but also in addition has tennis courts and a skate park. Aulin's Landing of Oviedonamed after one of the city's founding settlers and first postmaster, Andrew Aulin. The City's new town center, named "Ovieson on the Park", is a mixed use development with townhouses, apartment homes, restaurants, and retail. It was dedicated in 2015. A new emergency room (ER) hospital, called Oviedi ER, was completed in 2014.

Library

The East Branch of the Seminole County Public Library System is located in Oviedo on Division Street. The library is open 7 days a week except for certain holidays. This location provides curbside pick-up, 3D printing, free access to the Internet, meeting rooms available for reservation, and children, teen, and adult programs. You can access the eLibrary here.

Attractions

The Pinball Lounge has the largest concentration of pinball machines in the state. Black Hammock Adventures is a complex that offers airboat rides and a display of live gators. "The Rising" invites the entire town to travel a 5K route that leads past 10 historic sites, then "enjoy a homemade pancake breakfast while watching an interactive performance from actors in costume" The "Oviedo Lights" is a local roadside attraction. A mural dedicated to the phenomenon is painted on the wall of the local Tijuana Flats. The town of Oviedo has a population of about 4,000 people. It is located in the central part of the state, near the town of Bakersfield and the city of Piedmont. The city is located on the Florida Turnpike, which runs through the town's downtown area. It also has a turn-of-the-century town hall, which was built in the early 1900s. It's located at the base of a mountain, which can be seen from the top of the turnpike in the morning and the afternoon in the afternoon. It has a history of being the site of the Battle of the Bulge, which took place in the late 1800s and early 1800s, when the town was still a small Spanish-speaking town. It was also the birthplace of the city's first mayor, who was elected in 1900. The current mayor is the son of a former mayor who served in the military during World War II.

Air Quality, Water Quality, Superfund Sites & UV Index

The Air Quality index is in Oviedo, Seminole County, Florida = 78.6. These Air Quality index is based on annual reports from the EPA. Higher values are better (100=best). The number of ozone alert days is used as an indicator of air quality, as are the amounts of seven pollutants including particulates, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, and volatile organic chemicals. The Water Quality Index is 60. A measure of the quality of an area’s water supply as rated by the EPA. Higher values are better (100=best). The EPA has a complex method of measuring the watershed quality, using 15 indicators such as pollutants, turbidity, sediments, and toxic discharges. The Superfund Sites Index is 98. Higher is better (100=best). Based upon the number and impact of EPA Superfund pollution sites in the county, including spending on the cleanup efforts. The UV Index in Oviedo = 6.5 and is a measure of an area's exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays. This is most often a combination of sunny weather, altitude, and latitude. The UV Index has been defined by the WHO (www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/radiation-the-ultraviolet-(uv)-index) and is uniform worldwide.

Employed

The most recent city population of 40,059 individuals with a median age of 35.3 age the population grows by 26.11% in Oviedo, Seminole County, Florida population since 2000 and are distributed over a density of 2,580.79 residents per square mile of area (996.43/km²). There are average 3.14 people per household in the 10,565 households with an average household income of $79,817 a year. The unemployment rate in Alabama is 8.30% of the available work force and has dropped -5.92% over the most recent 12-month period and the projected change in job supply over the next decade based on migration patterns, economic growth, and other factors will increase by 19.86%. The number of physicians in Oviedo per 100,000 population = 173.3.

Weather

The annual rainfall in Oviedo = 52.7 inches and the annual snowfall = 0 inches. The annual number of days with measurable precipitation (over .01 inch) = 69. The average number of days per year that are predominantly sunny = 235. 92 degrees Fahrenheit is the average daily high temperature for the month of July and 47.8 degrees Fahrenheit is the average daily low temperature for the month of January. The Comfort Index (higher=better) is 28, where higher values mean a more pleasant climate. The Comfort Index measure recognizes that humidity by itself isn't the problem. (Have you noticed nobody ever complains about the weather being 'cold and humid?) It's in the summertime that we notice the humidity the most, when it's hot and muggy. Our Comfort Index uses a combination of afternoon summer temperature and humidity to closely predict the effect that the humidity will have on people.

Median Home Cost

The percentage of housing units in Oviedo, Seminole County, Florida which are owned by the occupant = 81.65%. A housing unit is a house, apartment, mobile home, or room occupied as separate living quarters. The average age of homes = 14 years with median home cost = $183,350 and home appreciation of -17.90%. This is the value of the years most recent home sales data. Its important to note that this is not the average (or arithmetic mean). The median home price is the middle value when you arrange all the sales prices of homes from lowest to highest. This is a better indicator than the average, because the median is not changed as much by a few unusually high or low values. The property tax rate of $11.20 shown here is the rate per $1,000 of home value. If for simplification for example the tax rate is $14.00 and the home value is $250,000, the property tax would be $14.00 x ($250,000/1000), or $3500. This is the 'effective' tax rate.

Study

The local school district spends $4,436 per student. There are 16.4 students for each teacher in the school, 819 students for each Librarian and 567 students for each Counselor. 9.73% of the area’s population over the age of 25 with an Associate Degree or other 2-year college degree, 27.50% with a master’s degree, Ph.D. or other advanced college degree and 13.26% with high school diplomas or high school equivalency degrees (GEDs).