Ocoee's Downtown Shopping District: Vintage Charm, Fitness, and Neighborhood Retail on Bluford Avenue
How the Bluford Avenue and McKey Street corridor became the beating heart of downtown Ocoee
Downtown Ocoee's shopping district is centered at the intersection of Bluford Avenue and McKey Street in Ocoee, FL. The corridor is anchored by the new Ocoee City Hall at 1 North Bluford Avenue, a 46,552-square-foot neoclassical building that opened in 2022. Key downtown businesses include Bike Life Cafe and Bike Life Bicycle Shop at 112 and 104 W. McKey Street, DG Doughnuts at 29 W. McKey, and Toll Road Brewing Company at 101 W. McKey — Ocoee's first craft brewery, which opened in June 2018. Healthy West Orange Wellness Park on South Bluford Avenue opened in 2022 with a half-mile multipurpose trail across five acres.
Drive past Ocoee on West Colonial Drive and you'd never know there's an actual small-town downtown tucked a few blocks north — built around a century-old street grid and getting a serious glow-up.
Meet the Bluford Avenue and McKey Street corridor: downtown Ocoee's historic core, now home to a new $22 million City Hall, a wellness park, a craft brewery, an award-winning doughnut shop, and a bicycle shop that doubles as a café.
Wait, Ocoee Has a Downtown?
It does, and it always has. Ocoee was platted in 1886, with the first school built on Bluford Avenue itself. The street grid that holds City Hall, the Withers-Maguire House, and Ocoee Christian Church has been the civic heart of the city since well before SR 50 was built south of town in 1959 and pulled commerce toward the highway.
The layout is simple: Bluford Avenue is the north-south spine, McKey Street runs east-west across it, and the shopping stretch sits on McKey between Bluford and Kissimmee Avenue. The city's 2005 Downtown Streetscape Project buried the utility lines, added decorative pavers, and installed new streetlights along this exact stretch. That was the setup. The past few years have been the payoff.
The Anchor: Ocoee's New City Hall at 1 N. Bluford Avenue
The single biggest thing to happen to downtown Ocoee in a generation is the new City Hall, which opened in August 2022 at the corner of Bluford Avenue and McKey Street. It's a neoclassical, three-story, structural steel and brick building — 46,552 square feet, about $22 million, and specifically described in city documents as the centerpiece of a downtown redevelopment master plan totaling more than $44 million in capital projects.
Why does this matter if you're not a city employee? Anchor investments like this are why new cafés and breweries open nearby. With City Hall pulling staff and visitors every weekday, the math changes for every storefront on the block.
The McKey Street Shops: Coffee, Doughnuts, Beer, and Bikes
Walk west on McKey from Bluford and you hit the small-business cluster that gives the corridor its personality. This is neighborhood retail — not big-box, not chain, mostly owner-operated.
Bike Life Café and Bike Life Bicycle Shop
At 104 and 112 W. McKey Street, Bike Life runs the unusual combo of a full-service bicycle shop next door to a breakfast and lunch café. The café serves paninis, wraps, omelets, and espresso drinks with a Brazilian accent (try the coxinha); the bike shop handles repairs and sales. Owner Renata Azevedo announced in 2024 that she's expanding with a second concept, Wine O'Clock Bistro, on the same block.
DG Doughnuts
At 29 W. McKey Street, Suite 200, DG Doughnuts has quietly become one of Central Florida's most talked-about bakeries since relocating to downtown Ocoee. Established in 2016, they do small-batch, hand-rolled, hand-cut doughnuts — apple fritters, cinnamon sugar holes, rotating specialty flavors — open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, or until sold out. More than 32,000 Instagram followers and a 4.7-star rating say it all.
Toll Road Brewing Company
Ocoee's first craft brewery opened at 101 W. McKey Street in June 2018. Toll Road runs an award-winning taproom with 20 beers on tap, rotating food trucks, live music, trivia nights, and a biergarten feel. Open Tuesday through Sunday, with hours running as late as 11 p.m. on weekends. Closest thing Ocoee has to The Crooked Can Brewery in Downtown Winter Garden — scaled smaller, same locally-owned energy. Pelican's SnoBalls sits next door for the kids (or the honest adults).
The Historic Layer: Marshall Block, Withers-Maguire, and the Centennial Mural
This isn't new construction on an empty lot. The Marshall Block building on McKey Street dates to the 1920s — the same decade Ocoee was incorporated (May 13, 1925). In February 2025, artist Christian Stanley unveiled a 1,200-square-foot centennial mural on the Marshall Block wall depicting Ocoee's agricultural roots, the Withers-Maguire House, and Starke Lake.
A block north, the Withers-Maguire House at 16 East Oakland Avenue is a late-1800s home on the National Register of Historic Places that anchors the city's Ocoee Arts & Culture scene. Ocoee Christian Church — a Carpenter Gothic structure also on the National Register — stands on Bluford just south of McKey. Fun fact: it's where the bingo scene in the 1991 film My Girl was filmed.
The Fitness Side of Bluford Avenue
Bluford delivers fitness — just not in the boutique-studio way. The infrastructure here is civic, free or nearly free, and built into the corridor.
Healthy West Orange Wellness Park opened in 2022 on South Bluford Avenue, across from the Ocoee Police Department. Five acres, half-mile multipurpose trail looping both ponds, four shaded wellness stations, and a boardwalk. Free, open daily.
The Ocoee Fitness Room operates through the city's Parks and Recreation department, with the full gym at Vignetti Center (1910 Adair Street, Monday–Thursday 7 a.m.–8 p.m., Friday 7 a.m.–5 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m.–4 p.m.). For broader options, see our Ocoee Health & Wellness guide.
The Real Talk: Pros and Cons
The Pros:
- A real, walkable downtown block — rare in Central Florida suburbs
- Owner-operated cafés, brewery, and bakery within a two-minute walk
- A free wellness park and city fitness program tied to Bluford Avenue
- Bill Breeze Park and Starke Lake are two blocks east
The Cons:
- Small district — maybe a dozen businesses, not a full retail row
- Retail mix still building out; beloved shops like West Side Mercantile have closed
- Most shops keep daytime hours; late-night is Toll Road Brewing only
- On-street parking; during Ocoee Music Festival and Founders' Day, the corridor closes
Where to Live If You Want to Walk Here
The neighborhoods closest to the Bluford/McKey corridor are 29 Palms at City Center, adjacent to the downtown core and walkable to Bill Breeze Park, and Ocoee Landings, less than half a mile from downtown amenities.
To compare downtown shopping against other West Orange options, read our Plantation Grove Shopping Center guide (Publix-anchored everyday retail), West Oaks Mall for big-box on West Colonial Drive, and our full Ocoee Shopping Guide. For a similar small-downtown feel, Downtown Winter Garden sits 10 minutes west and shows the more mature version of what Ocoee is building.
What the Locals Know
Downtown Ocoee isn't trying to be Downtown Orlando, and it isn't Winter Garden's Plant Street. It's a block-and-a-half of owner-operated businesses wrapped around a brand-new city hall, a wellness park, and a pair of National Register buildings — with Starke Lake and Bill Breeze Park a two-minute walk away.
Come for the doughnuts. Stay for the pint at Toll Road. Walk the wellness park loop. That's one of the real reasons people who move to Ocoee end up staying. ✨
For current events, city services, and downtown redevelopment updates, visit the official City of Ocoee website.
Thinking about living close enough to walk to downtown Ocoee? Browse homes in Ocoee, explore 29 Palms at City Center, or contact David Myers for a personalized tour.
