After city leaders in Sanford scrapped a major development in the downtown area, commissioners are once again discussing what could happen to the properties where the Heritage Park project was once planned.

Dozens of emergency vehicles are staging at Osceola County’s Heritage Park, waiting for when it’s safe to go out and begin any rescues caused by Hurricane Milton.

After numerous financial setbacks, Sanford city leaders voted Monday to scrap the Heritage Park in the downtown area.

The developer behind Heritage Park, a long-stalled plan to bring new apartments and commercial space to downtown Sanford, suffered another setback Monday night after commissioners unanimously voted against moving forward with a new way to secure the necessary funding to build the mixed-use project.

It's been billed as a catalyst for downtown Sanford, but a major development still hasn't started some six years since the city approved the project.

OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. – As the Federal Drug Administration edges closer to approving a COVID-19 vaccine, Osceola County leaders are ironing out the final details in its mass distribution plans. Osceola County’s Emergency Management Director, Bill Litton, said Heritage Park will actually serve as their primary site for mass vaccine distribution, once it’s available for the general population. In talking about the Heritage Park testing site, Litton said it provides a lot of area that would allow them to potentially have up to six lanes of vaccine administration. As storing the vaccine seems to be less of a hassle than initially though, Litton tells says for planned mobile sites and drive-up vaccination sites, county leaders are looking at having refrigerators on location. He also added they can recharge the vaccine shipments with dry ice every five days, for up to a maximum of 15 days.

SANFORD, Fla. – Sanford city leaders are considering buying property near downtown to help alleviate parking concerns. "If they take those parking spaces away I don't know where people are going to park," Gonzalez said. City leaders said parking has been a problem for years and they’re trying to prepare for this new development. "I think the city will resolve it because it's part of the economy and they're going to have to resolve it," he said. The Sanford City Commission meets on Monday at 4:30 p.m. to discuss purchasing the land.