Live in Colonialtown North
A 1911 plat that ended up behind the Mills 50 restaurants, with six lanes of State Road 50 along its southern edge.
Colonialtown North is 439 acres of bungalow streets north of East Colonial Drive, first platted in 1911 as Highland Grove and pushed south to the road it is now named for by a 1925 addition. What happened next is the part that decides whether a buyer wants to be here. After the end of the war in Vietnam, refugees resettled in central Florida through the Catholic Charities program took houses and shopfronts around Mills Avenue and Colonial Drive, and the businesses that followed through the 1980s and 1990s built the strip that the City later designated as the Mills 50 District. The Main Street district is not this neighborhood: it spans Colonialtown, Lake Eola Heights and Park Lake/Highland, and Colonialtown North is the residential half that most of it backs onto. The trade here is noise and stock. Colonial Drive is State Road 50 and carries the traffic of a metro of nearly three million along one boundary, and the houses behind it are 1920s bungalows that predate every wind code an insurer prices for. At a USGS-measured 108.4 feet, storm surge is not one of the risks.
The houses behind the restaurants
North of East Colonial Drive between North Mills Avenue and North Bumby Avenue, reaching Virginia Drive on the west side and Corrine Drive at the Bumby end.
This is an old piece of Orlando with a new reputation. The land was platted in 1911 as Highland Grove and sold by H. Carl Dann, and Dann's 1925 addition put more lots over the Hilson citrus grove and carried the neighborhood down to the road that gives it its name. The road was Sweet Avenue before it was Colonial Drive. What the City maps today as Colonialtown North is 439 acres of mostly 1920s bungalow streets running north from Colonial to Virginia Drive, between Mills Avenue and Bumby.
The reputation arrived in the 1970s. Vietnamese refugees resettled in central Florida through the Catholic Charities program took houses and shopfronts around Mills and Colonial, Dong A Oriental Supermarket opened on the strip in 1982, and through the 1980s and 1990s the cheap rent on that corner built the eating district the rest of the metro now drives to. The City designated it the Mills 50 District when it created Orlando Main Streets in 2008. The 2020 Census counted more than 78,300 Asian American residents in Orange County, the largest concentration in central Florida.
Mills 50 is not this neighborhood, and a listing that uses the two names interchangeably is wrong about one of them. The Main Street district spans Colonialtown, Lake Eola Heights and Park Lake/Highland, and it is a business district drawn around a commercial corner. Colonialtown North is the residential ground most of it backs onto. Practically, that means the walk to a Mills 50 restaurant is five minutes from the south end of this neighborhood and twenty from the north end, and the price per square foot knows the difference.
Colonial Drive is State Road 50, and it is the noisiest boundary any of these Orlando guides has. Six lanes carrying cross-metro traffic sit along the southern edge, so the blocks closest to it trade the walk for the noise, and the ones near Virginia Drive get quiet and lose the walk. Go and stand on the specific block at rush hour. The other constraint is the stock: pre-war bungalows that predate the statewide wind code of 2002, where a wind mitigation report moves the insurance quote further than the offer price does, and where knob and tube wiring and cast iron drain lines both still turn up.
Historic designation is the question people forget to ask. Lake Eola Heights and Colonialtown South both carry local historic districts, which constrain what an owner may do to a facade; whether a given block here is inside one is a question for the City's preservation staff and not for a listing sheet. At a USGS-measured 108.4 feet, none of the coastal argument on this site's Orlando hub applies here. Wind and rainfall do.
- Stand on the block at five in the afternoon. State Road 50 noise falls off fast, but not evenly
- Ask the City whether the address sits in a local historic district, because that decides what you may do to the front of the house
- Commission a wind mitigation report before offering; on 1920s stock it moves the premium more than the price does
- Check the wiring and the drain lines. Renovated kitchens sit on top of original systems all over this neighborhood
- Mills 50 is a business district, not this neighborhood. Confirm what a listing means when it uses the name
- There is no community development district and no association on most of these streets, so the tax bill is the millage and nothing else
How Colonialtown North got here
- 1911The land north of what is now Colonial Drive is platted as Highland Grove and marketed by the developer H. Carl Dann.
- 1925Dann's addition puts more lots over the old Hilson citrus grove and pushes the neighborhood's edge down to Colonial Drive, the road renamed from Sweet Avenue.
- 1970sAfter the war in Vietnam ends, refugees resettled in central Florida through the Catholic Charities program find houses and shopfronts around Mills Avenue and Colonial Drive.
- 1982Dong A Oriental Supermarket opens on the strip. The businesses that follow through the 1980s and 1990s, on rents that were cheap at the time, make the corner what people now mean by Mills 50.
- 2008The City creates Orlando Main Streets, and the Mills 50 District becomes one of the twelve designated districts.
- 2020The Census counts more than 78,300 Asian American residents in Orange County, the largest concentration in central Florida.
Leu Gardens, Lake Formosa and Loch Haven
There is no large park inside the neighborhood. What is around it is better than that. Leu Gardens, the City's botanical garden on Lake Rowena, is a few minutes north-east. Lake Formosa sits beside the Loch Haven campus, which holds the Orlando Museum of Art, the science center and the Shakespeare theater in one place. Lake Highland is immediately west, and Lake Eola Park, the sinkhole at the middle of downtown, is under ten minutes away.
What the map does not show: the open space here is a short drive or a long walk rather than something at the end of the street, and the walk to most of it crosses either Mills or Colonial. That is the honest version. It is also why the Leu Gardens membership is the standard local purchase.
Elsewhere in Orlando, not Colonialtown North
21 places, with real drive times
Road-adjusted distance and drive time from the centre of the community to each destination, nearest first. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 21 places, nearest first.
Method: distances and drive times are computed from a representative point in the neighborhood, using straight-line distance multiplied by a road factor and a tiered speed model: honest ranges, not routed times. Note that Colonial Drive and Mills Avenue are both arterials, so the short distances here are less reliable than the long ones at rush hour.
Every gym within reach
Exercise here is the lakes and the garden rather than a facility. Commercial studios sit along Mills Avenue and Colonial Drive, on the same strip as the restaurants, which is a useful arrangement or a dangerous one depending on the day.
- Paid entry with an annual membership, which is what most regular walkers here buy
- Lake Highland and Lake Formosa have sidewalk loops and are the free daily option
- Lake Eola Park downtown is the busy loop, and the one people drive to at weekends
- The residential grid itself is flat, shaded and quiet a few blocks back from Colonial, which makes it the summer running route
| Facility | What it is | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Lake Eola Park open | The downtown loop, and the closest thing this side of the city has to a running track that is always busy. | 6–9 min |
| Leu Gardens open | Fifty acres of botanical garden on Lake Rowena, with an admission charge and a membership that most regular walkers here buy. | 3–5 min |
| Lake Formosa open | The lake beside the Loch Haven campus, with a short path and the museums at the end of it. | 4–7 min |
| Lake Highland open | The lake immediately west, with sidewalks around most of it and a route into the Park Lake streets. | 4–6 min |
The free option is the neighborhood grid before eight in the morning. From June to September that is not a preference, it is the only comfortable hour.
One district, and a catchment line that ignores the neighborhood line
Orange County Public Schools runs the whole county, so nothing here turns on the city boundary. Hillcrest Elementary on East Concord Street is the elementary most of this area looks to, Howard Middle toward downtown runs a visual and performing arts magnet alongside its assigned intake, and Edgewater High in College Park is the assigned high school. Some addresses on the eastern side are assigned to Audubon Park School, which runs kindergarten through eighth grade.
| School | Board | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Hillcrest Elementary School | Orange County Public Schools | The elementary school most of this area looks to, on East Concord Street. Assignment is by address and the catchment line does not follow the neighborhood line. |
| Audubon Park School | Orange County Public Schools | A kindergarten through eighth grade school north-east of here. Some Colonialtown North addresses are assigned to it, which is the kind of thing to check rather than assume. |
| Howard Middle School | Orange County Public Schools | The middle school toward downtown, which runs a visual and performing arts magnet alongside its assigned intake. |
| Edgewater High School | Orange County Public Schools | The assigned public high school for this side, in College Park, which is a drive rather than a walk. |
| Orange County's choice program | Orange County Public Schools | Magnet and choice programs run county-wide alongside assignment, with their own application window. |
The catchment boundaries do not follow the City's neighborhood boundary, and this neighborhood is wide enough that two houses on it can feed different schools. Check the specific address in the district's zone lookup.
Month by month, what living here looks like
Not a highlights reel: the actual annual rhythm, including the dates residents have to remember.
- Highs around 22 °C and lows near 10, the coolest and driest stretch of the year
- The one month when walking to Colonial Drive for dinner is obviously the right call
- Peak visitor season, and traffic on I-4 and State Road 50 to match
- The driest month on average, and the best for anything outdoors
- Lunar New Year fills the Mills and Colonial restaurants and the parking is a contact sport
- Comfortable enough to be outside at midday, which stops being true in April
- Warming into the high twenties, with humidity coming back late in the month
- Spring break brings the metro's heaviest visitor traffic of the year
- Oak pollen is at its worst, and the bungalow streets here are heavily shaded
- Warm and still mostly dry, the last month before the air changes
- Insurance renewals cluster ahead of hurricane season
- Get a wind mitigation report; on 1920s stock it moves the premium more than anything else you can do
- The rainy season usually begins in the second half of the month
- Afternoon thunderstorms become a daily fixture rather than an event
- Central Florida is the most lightning-prone region in the United States
- Atlantic hurricane season runs 1 June to 30 November
- Daily storms, and mid-thirties once the humidity is counted
- The older oaks on these streets drop limbs in summer storms, so budget for tree work
- The hottest and wettest month, and outdoor life moves to early morning and after dark
- The strip stays busy after nine, which is when it is pleasant to be on it
- Storms are reliable enough in their timing to plan a day around
- Peak humidity, and the start of the serious part of hurricane season
- School starts mid-month and the Colonial Drive commute gets worse with it
- At 108 feet, what you are watching for is wind and rainfall, not surge
- Statistically the peak of Atlantic hurricane activity
- Binding restrictions mean you often cannot buy a new policy with a named storm in the basin
- Hurricane Charley crossing the city in 2004 is the local reference, not a coastal event
- The rains taper off and the humidity finally breaks
- Still hurricane season, and October storms have crossed the peninsula before
- The best month of the year for Leu Gardens and the lake paths
- Hurricane season ends on 30 November and the dry season starts
- Comfortable enough to be outside all day again
- Snowbird traffic returns and the metro fills back up
- Warm days, cool evenings and almost no rain
- Peak season proper, and the parks are full
- The pay-off for August
3 more photographs of the community and its surroundings
All freely licensed, via Wikimedia Commons. Filter by category.
Showing 1–3 of 3 photographs.
About these photographs. Openly licensed images geotagged in or near Colonialtown North, found on Wikimedia Commons and served from there with full attribution. Inline photos elsewhere on the page may still come from the site's shared Orlando library.