Union Park: The River Community East of Downtown
Union Park is 10,452 people astride East Colonial Drive in unincorporated Orange County — defined less by its corridor than by the river behind it: the Little Econ, Blanchard Park and 7.4 miles of greenway.
1 minute read
Union Park introduces itself badly and lives well. The introduction is East Colonial Drive — State Road 50 at its widest and loudest, running through the community’s middle. The life is behind the corridor: subdivision streets in unincorporated Orange County, ZIP codes 32817 and 32825, and a river. The census-designated place held 10,452 people at the 2020 census. This is the magazine’s Union Park hub in article form.
The river behind the corridor
The Little Econlockhatchee River — the Little Econ — bends through Union Park’s northern ground, and the county has built the community’s green heart on it: Jay Blanchard Park, 84 acres at 2451 North Dean Road, with the paved Little Econ Greenway running 7.4 miles through it. Dean Road and Rouse Road carry the neighbourhood north–south between the river and the corridor. It is an unusual arrangement for an Orlando suburb: the famous Orlando is a few miles west, the university a few miles north, and Union Park’s own centre of gravity is a slow river under a tree canopy.
The honest rankings picture
The magazine’s rankings have not scored a business inside Union Park yet, and this hub says so. Its Ranked Nearby tables come labelled from East Orlando and its neighbours, plotted on the Top Spots Map. What Union Park already has — a river, a great county park and a working corridor — is the substance this hub is built on.
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