OBT Development Board

You don't need a four-year degree to run a CNC machine on the Orange Blossom Trail.

That's by design. The owner of this Orlando manufacturing shop isn't recruiting from engineering schools. He's recruiting from the neighborhood, and he's training operators in-house.

"We tend to be more of an entry level CNC operator position, so we look for people that are maybe not traditionally or technically trained, and we train in house."

This is the part of the CRA story that doesn't get enough airtime. The buildings get the photo ops. The careers that fill those buildings are the actual return. When a CRA-backed business plants on this corridor, the jobs created stay close to home, and the skills get taught to people who would have been overlooked everywhere else.

To the community: that career is hiring near you. To investors and stakeholders: workforce development without a workforce-development line item is a real ROI most spreadsheets miss. To anyone debating whether the OBT CRA delivers value beyond brick and mortar: the value walks in the front door every morning.

Their plywood ends up in hospitals. In government buildings. In libraries. In universities. In the rooms where this region's most important work gets done.

So when the team behind Plywood Express looked at the Orange Blossom Trail, they didn't see what outsiders see. They saw the corridor's old self.

"OBT, long, long time ago, used to be the corridor for a lot of dreams and opportunities."

That line is worth sitting with. Every blighted block in America used to be somebody's main street. The decline didn't happen overnight, and the revival won't either. But it does have a name. It's called the OBT CRA.

A Community Redevelopment Area exists for exactly this moment. When private operators look at a corridor and see what it could be again, the public side of the table meets them halfway. Tax dollars generated here stay here. Funding gets routed back into the lighting, the sidewalks, the storefronts, and the small businesses willing to plant a flag before the rest of the market notices.

To the community: the dreams aren't gone. They're being rebuilt. To investors and stakeholders: this is when capital lands earliest, before a corridor gets "discovered." To anyone still questioning whether the OBT CRA earns its keep: ask the operators already here. They didn't show up for what OBT is. They showed up for what it's about to be.

Some businesses move into a corridor. Ivanhoe Park Brewing Company moved in to be part of one.

"Ivanhoe Park is all about commitment to community. That's been our vision from the beginning."

The proof is in the calendar. Every Wednesday, the Lager House taproom on OBT fills up for Board and Brews, a board game night that started with a handful of regulars and now packs the room. The recent Bad Bunny market drew a crowd that didn't even know the brewery was there. Then the people in that crowd became regulars.

This is the kind of momentum the Orange Blossom Trail Development Board, Commissioner Rose, and the West Lakes District have been quietly stitching together. Not big-budget marketing campaigns. Real local partnerships that put a brand in front of the people who actually live around it.

That's the part of community redevelopment that doesn't show up in a press release. The CRA helps bring a business to a corridor. The community-building is what gets it to stay, grow, and become a third place for the neighborhood.

To the community: the door is open every Wednesday. So is the rest of the week. To investors and stakeholders: this is what a CRA-backed business with cultural traction actually looks like. To anyone watching how OBT changes from here: the change is being built by the people who already live, work, and drink here.

A Facebook ad. A grant application. A new office on the Orange Blossom Trail.

That's the short version of how Marquise McKenzie moved DirtMaster from a home-based hustle into a brick-and-mortar headquarters in the 32805, the same zip code that houses the most justice-impacted residents in Central Florida. The catalyst? OBT Next, the grant program is backed by the Orange Blossom Trail Development Board and the OBT CRA.

This is exactly what a Community Redevelopment Area is built to do.
CRAs aren't bureaucratic line items. They're the engine that takes corridors long written off as blight and rebuilds them block by block, business by business. When a CRA is implemented the right way, you get owners signing leases instead of giving up on them, second-chance employees back on payroll, and tax dollars staying in the neighborhood that generated them.

To the community living and working along OBT: this is your investment coming back to you.

To the investors and stakeholders watching this corridor: this is what activated capital looks like at street level.

To anyone still questioning whether CRAs belong here: Marquise has the answer. He's open for business.

#32805
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"A company of transformation, not transaction."

That's how Marquise McKenzie describes DirtMaster. And it's not a slogan painted on a wall. It's a hiring policy.

Every employee who walks through the door at DirtMaster carries a story. Some of those stories include time inside the criminal justice system.
Marquise doesn't see that as a disqualifier. He sees it as the starting line.

"We make them realize that their past does not determine their future. We build trust and leadership skills in them from the first day they start."
The numbers behind this aren't soft. Working with the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, Marquise learned that individuals who receive second chance employment are 35% less likely to reoffend. That's not a feel-good metric. That's a public safety statistic.

Now layer that onto the CRA story.

The Orange Blossom Trail CRA didn't just fund a cleaning company moving into 32805. It funded an employment engine for a population most of the market won't touch. That's the compound interest of community redevelopment done right. Every dollar of CRA grant money in DirtMaster's hands buys economic activity, lower recidivism, and a corridor that's safer for everyone who lives on it.

To the community: this is what happens when investment lands in the right hands.

To investors and stakeholders: social ROI and financial ROI live on the same spreadsheet here.

To anyone debating whether the OBT CRA is worth the line item: count the people who didn't go back. That's the answer.
#32805

When the owner of Plywood Express was asked what to tell lawmakers about the CRA program, his answer was direct: "I strongly suggest to keep it."

Here's why.

Before he could grow the business, he had to make it safe. Fences up. Cameras up, 24 hours a day, two weeks of recorded footage on rolling backup. Because employees don't do their best work in a place that doesn't feel secure, and customers don't keep coming back to one either.

That kind of investment isn't glamorous. It's foundational. And it's the kind of expense most small businesses can't front on their own. The CRA closed the gap.

His words again: "It's something you can clearly measure."

Employees protected. Customers retained. Property values trending up on a corridor that used to drift the other way. That's the math.

To the community: a safer OBT isn't a slogan. It's the lights, cameras, and locked fences paid for by a program built to do exactly this kind of work. To investors and stakeholders: this is what de-risks the next deal on this stretch. To lawmakers: the people running businesses on OBT are telling you what they need. Keep the CRA.