The moment everything changed
In the summer of 2022, Lake Wales received news that would transform the trajectory of the city: a $22.9 million RAISE grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. The Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity program — one of the most competitive federal infrastructure grant programs in the country — had selected Lake Wales's application from among hundreds of cities and counties nationwide.
For a city of roughly 16,000 people, the grant was transformative — not just in dollar terms, but in what it represented. The federal government had looked at Lake Wales's plan, assessed its feasibility and equity impact, and decided that this small Florida city deserved one of the largest infrastructure investments in the program's history.
The grant didn't arrive in a vacuum. It was the culmination of years of planning, community engagement, and strategic positioning that began with the adoption of the Lake Wales Connected plan in 2020.
Dover, Kohl & Partners: the planners behind the vision
Lake Wales Connected was created by Dover, Kohl & Partners, a Coral Gables–based town planning firm with a national reputation for transformative downtown revitalizations. Founded by Victor Dover and Joseph Kohl, the firm has completed planning work in dozens of communities across the United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America — from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Panama City, Panama to Charlotte Amalie, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Dover, Kohl's approach is grounded in New Urbanism: walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods; connected street networks; human-scaled architecture; and public spaces that foster community interaction. The firm is distinguished by its emphasis on community engagement. Their planning charrettes — intensive multi-day design workshops open to the public — produce plans that reflect the genuine aspirations and knowledge of the people who live in a community.
The Lake Wales charrette drew hundreds of participants across multiple days. Residents, business owners, property owners, civic leaders, and institutional representatives contributed to a planning process that was intentionally inclusive and transparent. The result was a plan with broad community support — a critical factor in securing both political approval and federal funding.
What Lake Wales Connected proposes
The plan is comprehensive in scope, addressing everything from street design to land use policy to park and greenway development. Its core proposals organize around five themes.
1. Street transformation. Major streets throughout downtown and the Northwest neighborhood are being redesigned. Wide traffic lanes, minimal sidewalks, sparse tree cover, and hostile pedestrian environments give way to complete streets: narrower travel lanes, wider sidewalks with shade trees, protected bike lanes on key corridors, on-street parking that buffers pedestrians from traffic, and intersections that reduce crossing distances. The street designs draw directly from the Olmsted Brothers' 1929 plan, which specified tree-lined boulevards nearly a century before 'complete streets' became a planning buzzword.
2. Tree canopy restoration. The Olmsted plan specified a comprehensive canopy of live oaks, camphor trees, and native species that would shade every major street. Decades of neglect, development pressure, and storm damage dramatically reduced it. The plan proposes a systematic replanting program using species selected for disease resistance, climate resilience, and compatibility with the Olmsted palette — restoring the continuous canopy within 15 to 20 years. Urban tree canopy reduces summer temperatures by 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit, manages stormwater, improves air quality, and increases property values by 10 to 20 percent. In central Florida it is not a luxury; it is essential infrastructure.
3. Park and trail connections. The plan identifies opportunities to connect Lake Wales's existing parks and green spaces into a continuous network: a lakefront trail system around Lake Wailes, improved connections between downtown and Bok Tower Gardens, neighborhood pocket parks in underserved areas, and a regional trail connection linking Lake Wales to the broader central Florida trail network. The Olmsted plan had proposed exactly this kind of connected green network — Lake Wales Connected provides the framework to finally build it.
4. Northwest neighborhood investment. The most significant equity component of the plan — and the primary focus of the RAISE grant — is investment in the Northwest neighborhood, including the Lincoln Avenue corridor. This area was largely excluded from the Olmsted Brothers' original plan and has been systematically underinvested for decades. RAISE investments include complete street reconstruction with new sidewalks, drainage, and lighting; protected pedestrian and bicycle facilities; improved transit connections; new street trees and landscaping; and enhanced connectivity between the neighborhood and downtown.
5. Form-based code and development standards. The plan recommends a form-based code — a regulatory approach that controls the form, scale, and character of buildings rather than just their use. Traditional zoning produces the automobile-dependent sprawl that has degraded American communities since the 1950s. Form-based codes regulate how buildings meet the sidewalk, how tall they can be, how their facades are articulated, where parking is located. The result is development that creates walkable, human-scaled environments regardless of the specific mix of uses.
The Lincoln Avenue renaissance
Within the broader Lake Wales Connected framework, the revitalization of Lincoln Avenue deserves special attention. The historic Black business corridor — which thrived for decades despite segregation and systemic disinvestment — has been the focus of increasingly organized community effort.
The Lincoln Community Development Corporation, led by attorney Sara Jones, has been instrumental in catalyzing private investment along the corridor. Jones's own investment — purchasing two CRA-owned parcels to build a mixed-use office complex — demonstrates the kind of community-rooted development the plan envisions. Her project includes a law office, co-working space, event venue, and covered balcony.
The CRA has also been active, moving to dispose of agency-owned parcels to developers who commit to projects consistent with the plan's vision. The combination of public infrastructure investment, regulatory reform, and private development creates a virtuous cycle that can sustain revitalization over time.
Awards and recognition
Florida Redevelopment Association Best Planning Project (2020). APA Florida Plan It Award (2021). Federal RAISE Grant selection (2022) — itself a form of recognition, reflecting the federal government's assessment that the plan is feasible, equitable, and likely to produce transformative results.
Challenges and risks
No revitalization effort of this scale is without risk. Gentrification and displacement as property values rise in the Northwest neighborhood. Implementation capacity for a city of 16,000 managing a $22.9 million federal grant. Sustained political will across multiple administrations — urban revitalization is measured in decades, not election cycles. Economic diversification beyond a citrus industry that can no longer anchor the local economy.
The stakes
What makes the Lake Wales story compelling is not just the quality of the plan or the scale of the funding — it is the stakes. Lake Wales is attempting something that few American small cities have even attempted: a comprehensive reimagining of the public realm, grounded in a century-old planning vision, funded by one of the largest federal infrastructure grants in the state's history, and committed to equity and inclusion in a community where those values have not always been honored.
If Lake Wales succeeds, it becomes a national model for small-city revitalization — proof that you don't need a large population base or a tech-driven economy to build a beautiful, walkable, equitable community. If it falls short, the consequences are measured in missed opportunities and broken promises.
The next decade will tell the story. But the foundation — the plan, the funding, the community engagement, the institutional commitment — is stronger than it has ever been. Lake Wales has been waiting ninety-five years for this moment. The city, at last, appears ready to seize it.
This article draws on the Lake Wales Connected plan documents by Dover, Kohl & Partners, RAISE grant application materials, City of Lake Wales commission records, Florida Redevelopment Association proceedings, and interviews with planners and community leaders.