If you’ve ever driven through downtown Oviedo, you probably remember driving through a funky five-way intersection where State Road 434, County Road 426 and County Road 419 all intersect.

Most likely, you remember that traffic usually backs up, too.

The Florida Department of Transportation is set to begin an extensive road project designed to reconnect all of the roads, and increase traffic flow. But do the project, FDOT has to tear down much of Oviedo’s historic downtown.

"The framing shop sits right across the street from The Townhouse Restaurant, a well-known Oviedo diner that will also have to relocate. Chiodini says she’ll miss the rich history the city’s old downtown buildings have," said Lisa Chiodini, who owns Artistic Expressions.

“I’ll have clients who come in and say when I was a kid I used to come in and get my ice cream cone in here for five cents,” says Chiodini.

Chiodini’s frame shop will be one of several businesses that will have to move out.  

Some business owners were told recently they may have to move out as early as December. 

Chiodini says that will hopefully be moved back to next spring, which would allow the businesses to at least have a holiday shopping season before they have to transition to a new location. 

Right now businesses in the path of the transportation project are paying rent to FDOT, which has bought out the properties that occupy the future project’s space.

“The hardest part of the whole thing is just the uncertainty, because our timelines and dates change,” said Chiodini.

Vjollca Cekani, who owns Mad Hatter’s Pizza, has mixed feelings about the move. She says while moving will be a major ordeal and financially straining, she says the current location has become less and less ideal as traffic congestion has increased in recent years.

“So many customers when they come they say ‘I see this restaurant all the time but I don’t stop by because it’s so confusing,’ so I think the other place is going to help us,” said Cekani.

An Oviedo fire station in the area will also have to move. The city plans to build a new fire station next year that will house that station, and another station in the new building. That new building is slated for just south of downtown.