Rezoning could breathe new life into disused century-old Slavia Filling Station

Fears that a project just west of Oviedo may have been haunted by a leaky gas tank from nearly a century ago didn’t stop the Seminole County Commission from giving the green light to a coffee shop in the Slavia Building just north of the St. Luke’s Lutheran Church. 

The project developer would be looking to revitalize a building that first opened for service in the 1920s. It sits just across the street from what once was a rail line between Oviedo and Winter Park, which became the Cross Seminole Trail just after the turn of the 21st century. 

The project, at the corner of Red Bug Road (not to be confused with Red Bug Lake Road) and State Road 426, would transform the long-dormant pink Slavia Filling Station into a coffee shop. The site had once received Planned Development rezone approval to be another unnamed project in 2007, with potential uses ranging from a church to a pet store to a bakery, but languished without moving forward until the rezoning expired eight years later. 

But whether the 1,370-square-foot building had any historical significance other than its use as an early business in the Slavia community was on Commissioner Bob Dallari’s mind. The low, long building more resembles an unconventional house disappearing under an oak tree near where Slavia Road bisects Lukas Nursery, one of the original Slovak businesses in the area along with the nearby A. Duda and Sons, which turned 100 years old this year. But the building has seen little use since the late 20th century. 

“Is it perceived to be historical or is it [historical]?” Dallari asked county senior planner Kaitlyn Apgar. 

“To my understanding this is not a registered historical building,” Apgar said. “We don’t have a process in the county for doing that.”

“I would consider some of us to be historic,” Commission Chairwoman Andria Herr joked. 

The county’s Planning and Zoning Board had passed the rezoning request unanimously in May with a recommendation that the County Commission pass it also, and Dallari had already proposed a vote when Commissioner Jay Zembower halted the proceedings with a question. 

“Do we have any idea the last time that fuel was dispensed on the property?” Zembower asked the project representative, John Frith. 

Frith said that he was “unaware of” any gas tanks still on the property. During the presentation Apgar showed a faded sepia photograph taken nearly a century ago while the building was in operation as a fuel filling station. In the midday light flanked by two movable fuel tanks, a man in bright coveralls stands at the ready, his face obscured by the sun and nearly a century of wear, staring straight into the camera, waiting for the next car to come. 

“Do we have any idea whether underground tanks are on the property?” Zembower asked.

“I’m assuming they’ve all been dug up and disposed of,” Frith said. 

But that answer didn’t appear to sit well with two Commissioners, with Zembower and Commissioner Lee Constantine saying they wouldn’t vote for the project without a site survey for potential environmental hazards. 

“I would typically support this type of project, but without having any knowledge of previous dispensing of fuel and any underground tanks and lacking any environmental impact studies on the ground, I will not be voting in favor of this project moving forward,” Zembower said. 

But that’s when Dallari stepped in to ask whether, as part of the county’s analysis of the project if the rezoning was allowed, county staff would typically survey the site for environmental issues. 

“There would be an environmental analysis required as part of that site engineering work,” interim development services director Mike Rhodes said. “They would have to do that work and provide evidence that the site is clean and ready for development.” 

That settled the worries that held Constantine and Zembower back from voting for the project. It passed unanimously with all commissioners present. The project carried with it a master development plan for the coffee shop and renovation of the building, which was also approved.