Swampy's Florida

Swampy’s Florida thoughts: Great idea, but he has a location problem.

The location for, what the owner is calling, the world’s largest drive-in theater is being proposed just off State Road 19 and along County Road 44, across form the Trout Lake Nature Center.

The Eustis native wants to purchase City owned land for the project. I like the fellow’s approach to funding all surveying and preliminaries and if those come back that he can’t build his multi-screened drive-in there, he’ll hand the land back to the city and include the expensive studies. That’s how all developers should act.

His biggest hurdle will be getting enough customers there. This isn’t near US441, the main drag in n the area. This is north of Downtown Eustis, off 19 and then CR44 in a much quieter area.

Nearby are a slew of mobile home parks that could keep two screens full of retirees just about every night. Families are a tough call. Most families in that area are not well off. Mostly service workers and many getting government checks. Restaurants and shops are waaaay over their financial heads. He’s got a hit if he could pull in the Mount Dora crowd. Even better if he can somehow get the very wealthy north Seminole County crowd across those dark roads to Eustis, he could have a sure-fire hit.

Saw a member of the historic Triplett family comment on one of the stories that she would like to go, but it would be a haul from Casselberry. If he might pull folks from that far south would be something.

Another problem will be on the nature side. Though the owner proposes a nature area to connect to the Trout Lake Nature center, whatever the owner does, the project will disrupt the natural flow of the area. Though a far lesser impact than the monster “Toll” road off 46, just south of the proposed location, birds will still alter their flight plans due to the lighting and extra vehicle activity. However, a drive-in working with the nature side is about the least disruptive project that could be placed so close to the Trout Lake Center. I can’t think of a project that could be better.

Move the project just a few miles east and south, north Seminole County would be a far profitable and practical location.

I love that he, as a native, wants to have this project in his hometown!!!Best of luck to the fellow’s proposal.

By the way, he has a Facebook page for the Eustis Drive-In Movie Theatre project: https://www.facebook.com/EustisTheatre/

Here is a story about it from Only In Your State (Free to view): https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/florida/fl-largest-drive-in-movie-theater-world/

Here is another from The Daily Commercial (Requiring signing in to a free or paid account): https://www.dailycommercial.com/news/20200311/worlds-largest-drive-in-movie-theater-could-land-in-eustis

(As usual, I know the area of all this and it’s history very well. Wish the writers of both stories knew the area.)