About
Rooted in Florida. National in Perspective.
Our main office is in Clermont, Florida, 22 miles west of Orlando.
Mural photograph by Lisa Welling.
Founded in 1884 on a ridge of rolling hills amidst a chain of lakes, Clermont is a city of about 50,000 people and growing. Inspired in part by its historic downtown and the firm’s civic leadership, Clermont is also becoming a center for learning and implementing New Urban placemaking.
Lake-Sumter State College is initiating a new Associate in Science degree in Real Estate Development and Design on its Clermont South Lake Campus. The first such degree in the Florida public college system, the multidisciplinary approach will include urban design, municipal governance and economic development to prepare students for real estate development careers and collaborative roles in architecture, engineering, planning, city management.
The campus, now a typical commuter school, will be expanded based on a walkable mixed-use design by the well-known DPZ CoDESIGN firm, giving students the opportunity to live in a New Urban environment. Unbuilt campus acreage will be developed into a college-town village with human-scale streetscapes and the potential for student housing.
In parallel with the college, the City of Clermont hired DPZ CoDESIGN to create a new form-based zoning code for the municipality. The new code is intended to encourage mixed-use retail and residential projects in Northwest Clermont and the downtown core.
Both in our law firm and in civic life, we are advocates for New Urbanism. We believe in its principles of human-scale, walkable mixed-use development. We live it. We practice it. And we help make it happen.
Clermont is our home because it’s a great place to live. But our expertise travels. Our geographic range is all of Florida and, in cooperation with local counsel, to clients in any other location who want to create great communities. We have wide horizons and a straight shot to Orlando International Airport.