Green PLACE

By Patrick Connolly | pconnolly@orlandosentinel.com | Orlando Sentinel

PUBLISHED: February 6, 2026 at 6:00 AM EST

Hiking enthusiasts itching to get out for a walk in the woods have a new outdoor space to explore in Orange County.

The 241-acre Ken Bosserman Econlockhatchee River Preserve first opened to the public in December, giving the community a new piece of riverfront property to explore. Follow blazes on a one-mile hiking trail that winds through wetland hardwoods and hydric hammock with scenic viewpoints for stopping along the river.

The preserve is named after the founder of The Friends of the Econ, a developer and conservationist who strongly believed in the protection of the river.

“People who see the river fall in love with it,” Bosserman, who died in 2006, previously told the Orlando Sentinel. “I have yet to see anybody go out there and come back and say, ‘I want to build a house out there.'”

There once was a home on one piece of land that now makes up the preserve.

“The folks who lived there had a house on stilts. It got flooded out too many times and became unlivable. They couldn’t live there any more being in the floodplains,” said Andrew Bray, the environmental program supervisor with Orange County’s Green PLACE Program. “We purchased that property and all the properties along the river to help with floodplain protection and mitigation.”

Because the Econ River flows out into the St. Johns River, it’s especially important to protect all of the areas for water quality and worsening the impact of flooding events.

The parcels of land that now make up the preserve were purchased through the Orange County Green PLACE Program, which stands for Park Land Acquisition for Conservation and Environmental Protection.

In 2021, Orange County commissioners approved setting aside $100 million to purchase environmentally sensitive lands for conservation. The money was earmarked with the goal of increasing protected county lands from 23,000 acres to 46,000 by 2030.

Bray said the current acreage approaches 27,000.

“We’ve been working to purchase land throughout the county. We prioritize wildlife corridors, water protection, habitat conservation, critical and rare habitats,” he said. “We’ve bought properties that are half an acre and we’ve bought properties that are several hundred acres. If it’s a valuable property and it provides a critical linkage, we will work with the landowner to try and purchase it.”

The new riverfront preserve helps connect a corridor along the Econ River that links with Orange County’s Econlockhatchee Sandhills Conservation Area to the north.

From the trailhead, follow blue blazes on a short walk through a shady forest before crossing an open field underneath power lines then back into the trees again. After a quarter mile, the trail opens to a grassy field where it meets the start of an orange-blazed loop trail.

Navigate a scenic hydric hammock to find where the orange trail meets with a short yellow loop, which enters a wetlands environment where cypress knees begin to emerge from the ground. The sections of trail closest to the river may be wet after heavy rains.

The best views of the Econ River emerge on the western side of the orange loop, which is seen earlier in the hike when going clockwise and later when heading counterclockwise. A thoughtfully placed bench allows visitors to pause, take in the sights and reflect.

It’s the perfect place for a a morning stroll or afternoon outing, plus a conservation victory in the ongoing effort to save wild Florida.

The Wintersweet property was recently purchased for $1.9 million.

By Leticia Silva | 12:07 a.m. January 14, 2026

The Green PLACE Program recently acquired a 28-acre property in Winter Garden for conservation purposes.

The Wintersweet property is located at Fourth Street, Winter Garden, is accessed by Lake Johns Circle.

Green PLACE is a land acquisition and conservation program created 36 years ago. It is focused on preserving, enhancing and restoring environmentally sensitive lands within Orange County.

According to Andrew Bray, environmental program supervisor, the Green PLACE evaluated the Wintersweet property in 2023, assessing it for water quality, habitat conservation, rarity of habitat and ability for the public to recreate on it.

The property consists mostly of wetlands, Bray said, with nearly 20 acres of marshes.

“There’s also a little bit of hardwood forest in there as well,” Bray said. “That property ties in closely with water-quality protection. These properties help with water conservation and wetland protection.”

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, wetlands are considered rare and globally threatened, meaning it met criteria to acquire the land for the Green PLACE Program.

Beyond that, the program found the acquisition would provide water resource protection, aquifer recharge and floodplain storage, while also closing gaps between other publicly owned lands.

The Wintersweet property was acquired for $1.9 million as part of a bigger initiative dating back to 2021, when Orange County awarded the program $100 million to double the amount of conservation lands in its care, about 23,000 acres at the time.

Once the Wintersweet property was assessed, Bray said the Green PLACE’s real-estate department reached out to the landowner with an interest letter.

“If they’re a willing resident, then we move through the appraisal process,” he said. “It’s a very drawn-out process; it’s a lot of communication with the landowner, but the program is all willing-seller based. We don’t do any forced acquisitions.”

At the moment, Bray is unsure if the property will open up to the public.

“We’re going to assess the property for its feasibility to open up to the public, but we have not started that assessment yet,” he said.

Even if the property does not open to the public for recreational purposes, Bray said Winter Garden residents still will benefit from having the city’s land conserved and wildlife protected.

“Our ultimate goal is to keep conservation lands in conservation and if possible, open it for the public to recreate on,” he said. “But at the core of our program is land conservation, water quality protection and wildlife corridor protection.”

Once the acquisition was made public in December, residents flooded the comments thanking the program for its efforts to preserve land, some claiming it “a breath of fresh air,” encouraging more of the same.