Housing near Leidos

04The drive to the Research Park

The Central Florida Research Park sits on the east side of the metro, and all thirteen of our homes are on the west, downtown or northwest side, so this commute runs longer than it does for our other employer clusters. By road without traffic, the range across the thirteen homes is 26 to 36 minutes. Three homes tie for the shortest trip in this group at about 26 minutes each: the Dollins House and the Sunset Lake House, both in Washington Shores, and the 25th Street House in Holden Heights. The route from all three runs mainly on SR-408 east before reaching the Research Park's cluster of simulation and training offices.

Behind those three, the drive climbs by neighborhood. The Meet & Play House in Malibu Groves runs about 29 minutes, the Entertainment and Cozy houses in the Pine Hills area about 30, the Head Avenue House and Piedmont about 31, WinterPark Home and Downtown & Stadium Cozy Retreat about 33, and Wekiwa Home, farthest west in Hiawassee, about 36. SR-408 carries most of this trip regardless of which home you start from, and it is tolled by transponder or by plate. Over a program that runs several months, a SunPass or E-PASS transponder is worth setting up in the first week; plate tolling works but costs more per trip.

05Where the homes sit around the Research Park

The map below puts the Research Park at the center and places each home along its real compass bearing, with the distance from center standing for drive time by road, in minutes. Because the park sits on the east side of the metro, all thirteen homes read out to the west of it, spread across a broad band that mirrors the park's position on the east edge of the metro. Amelia’s Arena Retreat and Fruit Tree Home, on the downtown and south-of-downtown edge, anchor the inner part of that band at about 26 to 27 minutes. The West Orlando cluster, the Piedmont, Dollins, Meet & Play, Sunset Lake and Wekiwa houses, spans a wider range, from 26 minutes at the Dollins and Sunset Lake houses out to 36 at Wekiwa Home in Hiawassee. The Northwest Orlando homes, Head Avenue, Katherine, Entertainment, Londonderry and Cozy, read a step farther out, at 30 to 33 minutes.

Two homes in different clusters can land close together on the map despite sitting in different neighborhoods; the map is built on drive time, so neighborhoods with similar minutes to the park sit near each other on the page even when they are not near each other on the ground. Read the minutes above alongside the map instead of the map on its own. For a program based at the Research Park, this west-to-northwest band is the practical search area, and the difference between a 26-minute home and a 33-minute home over a stay of several months is worth weighing against the house itself, not only the commute.

06Housing that matches a program schedule

A cleared engineer or analyst coming in on a program assignment rarely wants a twelve-month apartment lease for a stay that might run three months or nine, and an extended-stay hotel room does not give a household kitchen or a place to park a personal vehicle for months at a time. A month-to-month written agreement solves both: you book the length of the assignment, extend a month at a time if the program runs long, and give notice when it wraps. That structure works the same whether you are the only person on the agreement or one of several colleagues sharing a house for the same program.

A subcontractor bringing an integration or test team for a multi-week push needs more bedrooms under one roof than a single engineer does, with the whole team's stay billed on one invoice, simpler for a contracts office to reconcile than a stack of separate hotel folios. Game Day Getaway-Downtown Orlando has four bedrooms and sleeps up to thirteen, which covers a small team sharing one address instead of splitting across several hotel rooms. It books on the same written monthly agreement as a single-guest stay, at one rate for the whole house rather than a rate per bedroom, so the accounting does not change based on how many people are actually using the space.

Per-diem contractors on a government program have their own version of the same problem: a voucher period that needs to line up with the housing dates it is meant to cover. Booking the stay to match the program's own start and end dates, and getting an itemized receipt for each month, is usually simpler for that reconciliation than a hotel folio that resets nightly. We confirm the rate, the deposit and the pet policy in writing before you commit, and the agreement itself can name you personally or your contracting company, whichever your program prefers.

07The homes closest to the Research Park

Three homes tie for the shortest drive to the Research Park, at about 26 minutes each by SR-408. All three sit on the west or south-of-downtown side of the city, in Washington Shores and Holden Heights.

West Orlando

Washington Shores

Game Day Getaway-Downtown Orlando

4 bd 2 ba Sleeps 13

7 min downtown · 7 min ORMC · 16 min Universal

Travel Nurse & MedicalInsurance & Displacement

South of Downtown

Holden Heights

Fruit Tree Home

3 bd 2 ba Sleeps 10

6 min downtown · 5 min ORMC · 13 min Universal

Travel Nurse & MedicalInsurance & Displacement

West Orlando

Washington Shores / Lake Sunset

City and Stadium Sanctuary Vibes

3 bd 1 ba Sleeps 8

7 min downtown · 8 min ORMC · 15 min Universal

Game Days, Concerts & WeekendsTravel Nurse & Medical

Game Day Getaway-Downtown Orlando in Washington Shores is a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home that sleeps up to thirteen, with gray shaker cabinets, granite countertops and marble-look tile throughout. Its bedrooms have wall-mounted TVs and blackout curtains, useful for anyone coming off a night shift or an early program start who needs the room dark during the day. It sits on a shaded lot with mature oak trees and a private concrete driveway. Its Airbnb rating is 4.15 across 12 reviews; the honesty notes on its own page point out the driveway shows algae staining and the backyard is natural and a little unkempt, typical of an older West Orlando lot.

Fruit Tree Home in Holden Heights is a three-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalow with full-size laundry on site, keyless entry and a fenced backyard with fruit trees. It carries 142 Airbnb reviews at a 4.83 rating, the most reviews of any of our thirteen homes. The bedrooms are compact, which suits one contractor well and two colleagues sharing adequately; it works for a family relocating too. The honesty notes describe it as a modest older bungalow with small bedrooms, and the laundry sits in an unfinished porch area next to the water heater.

City and Stadium Sanctuary Vibes, also in Washington Shores, is a small three-bedroom, one-bathroom bungalow that sleeps up to eight, under a live oak with a carport out front. Inside it has wood-look floors, a white kitchen with a breakfast bar, a dining table for four and a blue-gray sectional in the living room. It has the fewest bathrooms of the three, one for three bedrooms, and its backyard is currently being refreshed and is for walking pets only for now. Its Airbnb rating is 4.4 across 7 reviews, and the honesty notes flag stadium traffic on event days, worth knowing since Camping World Stadium is only about two minutes away.

08Billing a program or a per diem stay

Defense contractors, subcontractor firms and staffing agencies book the same way any company does with us: one written monthly agreement naming the home, the dates, the rate and the deposit, with an itemized receipt for each stay that a contracts office or a per-diem administrator can process. We can write the agreement to you personally, to your employer, to a subcontractor firm or to a staffing agency, and invoice in that party's name. Established companies, agencies and insurers can arrange Net-30 terms on a signed agreement or purchase order; the first booking is paid up front while that relationship is set up. A W-9 and a certificate of insurance are available on request, and Libema carries a commercial landlord liability policy. None of this requires a lease: an assignment that runs longer than planned is handled month by month, and telling us as soon as the extension looks likely is what lets us hold the following month.

This works the same way across government and per-diem housing, corporate and business housing, and a contractor crew booking a whole house for a team. We are an independent housing provider, not a Leidos vendor or subcontractor, and none of this implies any affiliation with the company; we have homes within reach of where its programs are based.

09Daily life near Washington Shores and Holden Heights

A program at the Research Park still means groceries, meals and somewhere to unwind after a long day, and for the three closest homes that daily life happens on the west side of the city, not near the campus itself. The Dollins and Sunset Lake houses sit in Washington Shores, covered in our west-side area guide: the Walmart Supercenter on West Princeton Street and Presidente Supermarket on Pine Hills Road are the nearest full grocery stores, and Nikki's Place on South Orange Blossom Trail has served soul food since 1999. Lake Lorna Doone Park, a twelve-acre city park that reopened in 2021 after an eight-million-dollar rebuild, has a walking loop, outdoor fitness stations and a splash pad, and sits close to that cluster of homes.

Camping World Stadium · Quintin Soloviev · CC BY 4.0 · resized from 10599x7576

Fruit Tree Home, in Holden Heights, falls under our downtown and close-in area guide instead. There is a Publix on South Orange Avenue just south of downtown near Holden Heights, and the Publix at The Paramount on Lake Eola covers the downtown core itself; downtown and Church Street, a short drive north, open up a wider range of restaurants and bars. The Downtown Orlando YMCA on North Mills Avenue is a full-service gym with two pools if a program stretches past a month and a gym membership starts to matter. None of these three homes is walkable to a SunRail station, so a car covers the daily errands regardless of which one you book.

Pharmacies are easy to reach from either cluster. On the Washington Shores side, CVS, Walgreens and a Walmart pharmacy line Orange Blossom Trail and West Colonial Drive; from Fruit Tree Home, downtown carries the Publix pharmacy at Lake Eola along with a CVS and a Walgreens within a few blocks. Both clusters put a pharmacy within a short drive of the house, which matters more on a program stay than it might for a week-long trip, since a maintenance prescription eventually needs a refill somewhere other than the one you brought with you.

10What's in the house

Every home comes furnished and ready from the first night: beds and linens made up, a stocked kitchen with cookware and dishes, a washer and dryer, Wi-Fi, and private parking in a driveway or carport. Exact inclusions are confirmed in writing when you book.

Exact inclusions vary a little by home and are confirmed in writing when you book.

Of the three closest homes, only Fruit Tree Home has full-size laundry; the Dollins and Sunset Lake houses each have their own washer and dryer as well, just not the full-size unit. Game Day Getaway-Downtown Orlando is the one with blackout curtains in the bedrooms, useful for anyone whose program hours run early or late. None of the three lists a desk in our amenity records; if a dedicated home workspace matters as much as the drive, The Clue House and Meet. Play. Stay. both have one, at about 31 and 29 minutes from the Research Park. Game Day Getaway-Downtown Orlando and Fruit Tree Home publish a street address on the site; City and Stadium Sanctuary Vibes publishes its neighborhood and zip code, with the exact address shared at booking. None of the thirteen homes has a pool; they are residential houses, not a resort property.

11A bridge before a permanent move

Not everyone headed to a Research Park program needs housing tied to a badge date. Some employees accept a contract award and are waiting on a start date; others have sold a home elsewhere and are waiting to close on one here. For both, a month in a furnished house is simpler than a short apartment lease: you book by the month, extend by the month if the timeline slips, and move out with a few days' notice once things are settled. Several of the homes accept pets, so a family moving with a dog or a cat can keep it with them during the transition; the policy and any deposit are confirmed in writing before you commit. Individually booked stays follow the same steps as a company booking, a rate, a deposit and the pet policy confirmed in writing, then a written agreement naming the home and the dates. Our relocation and long-stay page and our neighborhood starter guide go further if the move involves more than one employee.

12What guests said

These are real reviews from Fruit Tree Home's own Airbnb listing, quoted exactly as guests wrote them, with the reviewer's name and month. Every home carries its own set on its page, and the full collection is on our reviews page.