New owner will give the building a “full facelift,” seek retailers
By Teresa Sargeant
Reporter
Every Friday night, the Fifth Street area is energized with the Market on Fifth farmers market.
Local vendors offer items such as fresh produce, farm-fresh eggs, and artisan breads. Visitors not only delight in purchasing these items, but enjoy the live music and stroll along Fifth and Main Streets to visit the restaurants and shops in the area.
Over three years ago, Propagate Social House launched a farmers market as a test program on its own property. The event gathered community support, and the city of Apopka allowed Propagate to set up the farmers market in the parking lot by Fifth Street for an eight-month trial.
Eventually, in October 2024, the City Council voted unanimously to close Fifth Street every Friday beginning Oct. 25 for Market on Fifth.
“We are incredibly excited to enter this new chapter for Apopka’s Farmers Market,” Propagate Social House co-owner Ella Duke said in an October 2024 statement. “This partnership exemplifies the power of community support and collaboration, and we look forward to seeing the market flourish in its new location.”
Propagate Social House, Three Odd Guys Brewing, the Smoke Exchange and Young’s Law Firm are located in the Fifth Street Plaza.
Expanding outward, other businesses located in the Fifth Street/Main Street area include Just Like Momma’s Soul Food & Wings, Hicks Seafood House of Apopka, McLeod Law Firm, Spin City Cycles, Downtown Barbers, Ace Hardware, Ryan Brothers Inc., and Central Florida Tang Soo Do.
Hall’s on Fifth, which opened on May 14, is the latest addition to Fifth Street. Launched by the partners of Propagate Social House, Apopka’s first food hall has over half a dozen vendors and keeps historic name of the former Hall’s Feed Store, which previously occupied the same space.
The Fifth Street Plaza is a part of the overall downtown Apopka district comprised of historical landmarks, residences and commercial properties. The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) has worked to revitalize the district in recent years.
The Kim family, who owned All American Furniture, also previously owned Fifth Street Plaza. The family acquired All American Furniture – a former nickel-and-dime store – from John Green and the Fifth Street Plaza from Warren Lockeby in the early 2000s.
All American Furniture operated for over 20 years before closing its doors in March.
Located at 54 E. Fifth St., All American Furniture occupied an estimated 6,000 square-foot space and sold appliances, antiques, mattresses and more, and served many lower to middle-income families.
When the Kim family took ownership of the plaza, the only tenants were the used furniture store and a Spanish church. Through the family’s efforts, Fifth Street prospered. Young Kim was tasked with bringing more tenants into the building, resulting in Three Odd Guys, Propagate Social House and the Smoke Stack becoming tenants.
Over the years, the Fifth Street area further prospered with events, and infrastructure and edifice renovations.
Across the street from Fifth Street Plaza, the city renovated the public parking lot that included repaving the ground and planting palm trees.
When it came time for Hai Yong Kim to retire, no one else in the family wanted to take over the business.
“Our family doesn’t have as much money as a large developer to make improvements,” Young Kim told The Apopka Chief in March. “For the future, as Apopka develops and more and more things develop, I think there’s going to be so much potential in this building because there’s so much history.”
The Kim family sold the Fifth Street Plaza to Millenia Partners for $1.8 million. The buyer is Edson Cahna, an investor living in Brazil. His daughter and son-in-law, who live in the U.S., will take care of the Fifth Street Plaza, but Millenia Partners was the broker hired to manage the property, not the buyer.
There will be “a full facelift,” Luciano Medeiros of Millenia Partners said.
Millenia Partners is looking for medical tenants, possibly another furniture store, a mini-market, Latin market or a retailer similar to it. All the current tenants will remain at the plaza, Medeiros said.
The flourishing of Fifth Street commerce in recent years came with the opening of Three Odd Guys Brewing in 2017, according to Mayor Bryan Nelson.
“[We saw] some momentum with the Fifth Street merchants there that we’re really starting to see some people are coming back downtown,” Nelson said. “Obviously, it started with the Three Odd Guys brewery that came in first, kind of set the stage. Then you added Propagate, and the huge outdoor deck that they put in has really kind of energized that whole area. Then we’ve added that, obviously, added the farmers market. We’ve added Hicks Seafood and then now, with Hall’s on Fifth, we really have an opportunity to turn that whole block into a really vibrant daytime and nighttime event center, along with the improvements we’ve done at the community center.”
The Apopka Community Center/VFW Building, on 519 S. Central Ave. which opened in 2006, underwent an extensive renovation during the COVID-19 pandemic, including installation of new lighting and flooring.
This year, the city replaced the air-conditioning system, repainted the walls and installed new window coverings.
“What we’ll have is a really first-class building that that we want to get a lot more rentals out of… to highlight our downtown,” Nelson said.
Also on the agenda for development to spur the Fifth Street area’s economic growth is the Station Street redevelopment that will see the construction of two apartment buildings, one comprised of 24 units, the other of 30 units, both with one- and two-bedroom energy-efficient units.
Accommodating up to 54 families, both buildings will be constructed out of cold-formed steel using 100% domestic steel. The buildings will come with a shared-use parking lot that apartment residents and downtown visitors alike could use, and a common plaza for events, including a staging area for live performances and a section for food trucks.
The Apopka Chief is an award-winning weekly newspaper serving the greater Apopka area in Central Florida since 1923.
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