Nearly a decade after the popular but kitschy Flea World attraction closed, a developer has presented new plans to build a sprawling complex of hundreds of apartments, a hotel, offices and shops on the vacant land near Sanford.

It’s the third time someone has tried to develop the weed-filled property off U.S. Highway 17-92, across from Seminole’s expanding Five Points government center. Seminole officials have long considered the area “blighted” and tried to attract high-end development.

On Tuesday, Seminole commissioners are scheduled to vote on plans for the Reagan Center development that call for up to 1,003 apartments, a 200-room hotel and roughly 1.3 million square feet of retail and office space spread across 75 acres northwest of Ronald Reagan Boulevard.

But residents and nearby property owners say the plans do not do enough to address the increasing traffic congestion and flood risk for nearby homes.

“That area is already flooding, and they want to develop it even more? That’s absurd,” said Tally Sinclair, who along with her husband owns 16 wooded acres tucked between the Flea World site and dozens of older homes near Lake Dot and Sunland Park.

At 110 acres, the Flea World land is owned by a subsidiary of the Boys and Girls Club of Central Florida Foundation. Orlando philanthropist and businessman Syd Levy, who started Flea World in 1983, willed the property to the non-profit organization before he died in 2018.

Representatives for the developer, Integra Land Co., could not be reached for comment.

However, according to plans presented to the county and community meetings attended by more than a dozen homeowners late last year, 35 acres will be conserved as wetlands and a storm water retention pond will be built to control any flooding.

Still, Sinclair called that “insufficient.” She doesn’t oppose the old Flea World site being developed. She wants a greater effort at preventing flooding.

“I don’t believe for a minute that water is not going to flood these properties even after building a retention pond,” she said. “It rains a lot in Florida.”

John Guy also is pleased the vacant land will soon be developed.

“This Flea World property has been sitting idle for a long time. So here’s an opportunity to do something nice, and I think it can be something nice for Seminole County,” he said.

But Guy is worried about traffic congestion on Ronald Reagan Boulevard, also known as County Road 427.

When fully built out in about three years, the Reagan Center development would add an estimated 31,460 new vehicle trips daily going in and out of the complex, according to plans.

“That’s a huge concern for us: Traffic on 427,” Guy said. “You just see people racing. It’s very, very dark and there are no street lights. And now you’re talking about several thousand people housed in those apartments.”

Billed as “America’s Largest Flea Market” in its mid-1980s heyday, Flea World was an attraction not just for the hoi polloi. County commissioners, deep-pocketed business types, and celebrities — including famous televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker — shopped alongside working men and women.

Weekend afternoons saw thousands of bargain seekers, the curious and those simply wanting to take in the gauche and gaudy displays. Vendors sold just about anything — vacuum cleaners, bed frames, $3 watches, camouflage attire, Frank Sinatra painted on black velvet, Fred Flintstone bobble heads and, yes, kitchen sinks.

A lawyer helped draw up wills. A dentist worked on teeth. There was an undertaker. And Elvis impersonators provided entertainment. A food court offered hot dogs, ice cream and cheese fries on paper platters as large as a car’s hubcap.

In 1988, Levy put in a zoo with lions, tigers, bears and monkeys, each named after local television personalities. The zoo closed after protests from animal rights groups.

He later added Fun World, an attraction that offered go-kart track, bumper cars and carnival rides.

“We were second to Disney World,” Levy told an Orlando Sentinel reporter in July 2015, a month before it closed. “You could have not a nickel in your pocket, but you could still have a great time at Flea World.”