“May is the month of graduations,” explained Joanne Ling, Senior Director of Commercial Sales, Leasing and Development for Tavistock Development Company. During a recent tour of the still-under-construction Lake Nona West, Ling was showing a prospective tenant a space when something caught her eye: graduates in caps and gowns lined up to take photos in front of the Future is Bright mural. “It did not even dawn on me that the mural was so iconic and perfect for graduation photos. It was great that day. I was choked up. I’m like, this is exactly what we wanted,” Ling said.

For Ling, that response reflected the broader purpose behind the project. “The vision for Lake Nona West started as meeting the needs of our community. We wanted to create a place that was a one-stop shopping destination for our residents and for visitors to the area.” From the beginning, the team considered how people would experience Lake Nona West beyond a single shopping trip. Rather than creating a center where visitors would drive from storefront to storefront, the plan emphasized shade, walkable pathways, detailed hardscape and landscape design, and gathering spaces that encourage people to linger. For Tavistock, the project became an opportunity to transform a familiar retail format into something more intentional, inviting and rooted in placemaking.

“Bringing in our design partners and construction partners early was critical. From the very beginning, we were very intentional about how this project was going to look and feel. It was very evident early on that Cuhaci Peterson took ownership of the project from the same lens we did.” That shared vision began taking shape through early mood boards and design conversations with Juan Gimeno, Senior V.P. of Design and Digital Practice for Cuhaci Peterson. Ling said Gimeno “took that and went running,” bringing forward ideas the Tavistock team had not yet imagined. The result was a creative give-and-take, with each side refining and elevating the other’s ideas. For a retail center, a project type Ling noted is not always “the most exciting vertical,” Lake Nona West became an opportunity to push beyond the expected. “Juan was the driver of that,” Ling said, noting that he also “visually brought the center to life.”

That early design clarity also changed the typical dynamic with national retailers. In most shopping centers, Ling said, junior anchor tenants bring established prototypes that leave little room for adjustment. At Lake Nona West, however, the design vision was already defined before many of those retailers came on board. Their trade dress and familiar brand elements were incorporated respectfully, but the center’s overall character remained largely intact. For Ling, that outcome was “a testament to Cuhaci Peterson’s design team, and a testament to the vision for the center.” It also reflected the close coordination required between design and leasing from the earliest stages.

That collaboration became especially important as leasing activity accelerated. Josh Inman, Chief Operating Officer at Cuhaci Peterson, said the firm’s role extended beyond drawings and documentation, helping Tavistock think through how design decisions could support tenant recruitment and long-term flexibility. “We at Cuhaci were much more closely connected to the Tavistock leasing team than we normally are with these types of projects.” That gave both teams a clearer view of what retailers needed, what Tavistock wanted to preserve and where the design could adapt without losing the character of the center. “We’re able to advise what we’re seeing in the retail market and what might be more or less difficult to get accomplished in a lease.” Those ongoing conversations helped create the conditions for Lake Nona West to grow well beyond its original footprint.

What began as a more modest retail plan anchored by Target and a handful of junior anchor spaces quickly expanded as retailer interest grew. The original concept, roughly 25 to 30 acres, eventually more than doubled to 54 acres, with six junior anchor spaces, about 150,000 square feet of big-box retail to complement Target, 86,000 square feet of shops and additional outparcels. For Kim Harold, Project Manager for Cuhaci Peterson, that growth created a project with two distinct design and construction rhythms. “It was very much two types of projects.” On one side were the larger-format, tilt-wall retail buildings; on the other were the smaller north and south blocks, designed at a more human scale and oriented around courtyards, public art and a destination-style experience. “Each tenant in that area has a unique storefront, a very unique space. No two look the same.”

That scale also positioned Lake Nona West as something increasingly uncommon in the retail landscape. With few large-scale shopping centers under construction across Florida and even nationally, the project stood out not only for its size but for the strength of its tenant mix. Rather than requiring shoppers to drive between multiple centers for brands like Nordstrom Rack, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Barnes & Noble and Total Wine, Lake Nona West brought those destinations together in one place. Combined with easy access from State Road 417, that concentration of retailers lets the center draw from a wider trade area and bring new visitors into Lake Nona regularly.

By the time the first grand openings arrived, the promise behind the Future is Bright mural was no longer just an idea. A few weeks after graduates lined up to take photos, new lines formed as the community gathered to celebrate Lake Nona West. At the Barnes & Noble opening, that anticipation was hard to miss. Before the doors opened, a line wrapped around the building and past several storefronts, waiting to get inside. One attendee captured the scene simply: “Never been in a bookstore with this many people all at once.”

The crowds offered one more measure of what the early collaboration had helped create: not simply a completed retail center, but a destination people were eager to experience. In the end, Ling said, that was what made the project meaningful. “It is rare when you develop a project and you start with a rendering that you get your finished product and it is as good, if not better than your rendering and I’m very proud that is what Lake Nona West came to be.” Josh Inman, Chief Operating Officer at Cuhaci Peterson, saw the same transformation from the design side. “Seeing the project in person absolutely, absolutely blows away what was already in the drawings,” he said. For Inman, the finished center proved that the collaboration had produced something drawings alone could not fully capture: a place brought to life by the community experiencing it.