Housing near Valencia College

04Getting to Valencia's campuses

Valencia's West Campus sits on South Kirkman Road, in the same stretch of west Orlando as four of our homes, and Kirkman Road and SR-408 are the two roads that get you there most directly. From the Piedmont House and the Meet & Play House the West Campus is about 7 minutes by road; from the Entertainment House and the Cozy House, both in Pine Hills, it is about 8 minutes, reached by Silver Star Road onto SR-408. The Downtown Campus, which Valencia shares with UCF at Creative Village, sits closer to the Amelia House on the Parramore edge of downtown, about 7 minutes away. Amelia’s Arena Retreat itself is about 10 minutes from the West Campus, so it fits a Downtown Campus role better than a West Campus one.

The chart lines up all thirteen homes against the West Campus, not just the four closest. Drive times elsewhere in the portfolio run up to about 21 minutes, at WinterPark Home in Lockhart, so where you land in that range depends on which side of the metro your home sits on.

The map places each home by its real compass direction and drive time from the West Campus. If an appointment means driving between the West Campus and the Downtown Campus on the same day, both routes lean on SR-408, so the extra stop costs only a few added minutes for the homes clustered near Kirkman Road. SR-408 is a toll road, collected by transponder or by plate; a SunPass or E-PASS is worth setting up before a four-month appointment begins, since paying by plate costs more per trip over a full semester.

These minutes are typical road-routing times without traffic, and Orlando's rush hours add to the longer routes. A morning class or an early meeting on the West Campus can meet the outbound edge of the morning peak on SR-408, while a schedule built around midday or evening hours mostly clears it. This side of the metro runs on cars. Plan on driving to either campus regardless of which cluster you book.

05Who ends up near Valencia College

A visiting or adjunct instructor hired to teach for one semester is rarely interested in a year-long apartment lease for four months of work, and furnishing an apartment for a single term costs more than it is worth. A furnished house on a four-month agreement matches the academic calendar directly: move in before classes start, teach the semester, and hand back the keys once grades are posted.

Program and grant staff run on a different clock than the academic calendar. A coordinator hired to stand up a new initiative, or a researcher on a grant-funded position, often has a contract length set by the grant's funding period. A written monthly agreement extends in the same increments the grant does, and an itemized receipt after each payment gives a business office what it needs to reconcile the expense against the grant's own budget lines. Our corporate and business housing page covers that side of a stay in more detail.

Families supporting a student for a term are a smaller but real part of who books near Valencia: a parent staying for part of a semester to help a student settle in, or relatives visiting for an extended stretch around a program milestone. A whole house gives that family separate bedrooms and a real kitchen instead of one hotel room and takeout for weeks; our student, intern and resident housing page speaks to that kind of stay directly.

Staff relocating between Valencia's campuses, whether a reassignment from the West Campus to the Downtown Campus or a temporary posting while a permanent hire is finalized, need a base that works for whichever drive matters most that month. The Kirkman Road cluster favors the West Campus commute, and the Parramore home favors the Downtown Campus; which one fits depends on where the assignment is actually based. Our relocation and long-stay page covers that transition period. In practice, whichever role brings you here, the paperwork looks the same: a written agreement naming the home, the dates and the rate, so a business office, a grant administrator or a family budgeting for a term all get something they can point to.

06The homes near the West Campus

Four of our homes are within about 7 to 8 minutes of the West Campus by road: Piedmont and Meet. Play. Stay. at 7 minutes, and Entertainment Home and Cozy Home at 8 minutes.

West Orlando

Washington Shores

Piedmont

4 bd 3 ba Sleeps 14

11 min downtown · 11 min ORMC · 13 min Universal

Travel Nurse & MedicalInsurance & Displacement

West Orlando

Malibu Groves

Meet. Play. Stay.

3 bd 2 ba Sleeps 9

9 min downtown · 10 min ORMC · 12 min Universal

Remote Workers & Digital NomadsGroups & Reunions

Northwest Orlando

Pine Hills

Entertainment Home

3 bd 2 ba Sleeps 11

11 min downtown · 12 min ORMC · 14 min Universal

Groups & ReunionsFamily Vacations & Theme Parks

Northwest Orlando

Pine Hills

Cozy Home

3 bd 1 ba Sleeps 8

11 min downtown · 12 min ORMC · 14 min Universal

Family Vacations & Theme ParksInsurance & Displacement

Piedmont, in Washington Shores, is about 7 minutes from the West Campus. It has four bedrooms and three bathrooms, sleeps up to fourteen, and its concrete parking pad fits several vehicles, useful if a visiting instructor arrives with a second car or two colleagues share the house and each keep their own. It is one of the six homes on the site that publish a street address.

Meet. Play. Stay., also about 7 minutes from the West Campus, is the newest-built home in the portfolio: three bedrooms and two bathrooms, sleeping up to nine, with desks and office chairs in two of the bedrooms. Its address is neighborhood and zip only, with the exact street shared once you book.

Entertainment Home, in Pine Hills, is about 8 minutes from the West Campus. It has three bedrooms plus a small bonus room for extra sleeping space, sleeping up to eleven in total, with a one-car garage and a living room built around a fireplace TV wall; the bonus room does not count as a fourth bedroom. Like Meet. Play. Stay., its street address is neighborhood and zip only, shared once you book.

Cozy Home, also in Pine Hills, ties Entertainment Home at 8 minutes from the West Campus. It is a three-bedroom, one-bath bungalow that sleeps up to eight: a king bedroom, a room with two full beds, and a third bedroom with a full bed, all sharing one bathroom with a tub and shower. Like Entertainment Home, its street address is neighborhood and zip only, shared once you book.

Sleeping capacity across the four runs from eight to fourteen, so a solo instructor, a couple, or a family joining a relocation each land on a home matched to the group size. All four sit on residential streets in established, working-class neighborhoods, and none of them is new construction apart from Meet. Play. Stay.. At Piedmont, the front driveway and parking pad show some age and the backyard grass runs long in photos; Cozy Home is an older single-story home with compact rooms and one shared bathroom, in keeping with the plain, lived-in character of the portfolio.

07Working from Meet. Play. Stay.

For an appointment that means working from the house between classes or between grant deadlines, Meet. Play. Stay. is the one built for it. Two of its three bedrooms have a desk and an office chair, so two people on the same stay can each close a door and work without sharing one table. The house also has a separate laundry room, an attached garage, and a fenced backyard with a covered patio.

The rest of the house is built for downtime: a game room with a pool table and a dart board, a fireplace TV wall in the open living room, and a covered back patio with wicker seating. It is newer construction, so the landscaping is still young and the yard is plain grass, and the furnishings are simple and practical. The game room's colored LED cove lighting is a playful touch left over from group bookings and is easy to switch off for a work-focused stay. It sleeps up to nine, which covers a visiting instructor's family or two colleagues sharing for a semester with bedrooms to spare. It is also about 9 minutes from downtown Orlando and about 12 minutes from Universal, so a weekend off during the semester does not mean a long drive.

08Billing for an institution, a grant or a family

When a department, a grant program or a relocation office is the one paying, we can write the agreement directly to that institution instead of to the person moving in. Invoices go out monthly in the institution's name, and we provide a W-9 and a certificate of insurance on request, since Libema carries a commercial landlord liability policy. Net-30 terms are available once a signed agreement or purchase order is in place, though the first month is still paid up front.

• A written agreement naming the home, the dates, the rate and the deposit
• Itemized monthly receipts a business office or grant administrator can process
• A W-9 and a certificate of insurance on request
• Net-30 terms once a signed agreement or purchase order is in place

A family supporting a student, or an instructor paying out of pocket, books the same way any individual stay does: a rate and deposit confirmed in writing, and an itemized receipt after each payment. Net-30 and purchase-order terms are for institutions, agencies and insurers rather than families or individuals, so those stays are paid the normal way instead of invoiced after the fact.

Either way, the monthly rate is never posted online. We confirm the rate, the deposit and the pet policy in writing once we know the dates and the house, so nothing changes between the quote and the invoice. If an appointment stretches from one semester into two, tell us as soon as you know; extensions run month by month, and holding the same home for a second term is usually possible when we hear early.

09Around the West Campus and Malibu Groves

Meet. Play. Stay. sits in Malibu Groves, a residential pocket between Kirkman Road and Pine Hills Road just south of the Central Florida Fairgrounds. MetroWest's restaurant row on South Hiawassee Road is the everyday food option from here: Tacos Don Andres for birria, Habibi Lebanese Grill for shawarma, and Mecatos Bakery & Cafe for Colombian coffee and pastries. The newer Publix at Metro West Village on South Hiawassee Road covers groceries for this side of the cluster, and Teak Neighborhood Grill off Kirkman Road adds craft beer, burgers and a weekend brunch for a night off from grading.

UCF Center for Emerging Media · Dclemens1971 · CC BY 4.0 · resized from 4032x3024

The Downtown Campus at Creative Village sits inside downtown Orlando itself, sharing the district with UCF's downtown campus and the EA game studio. For staff or students based at the Downtown Campus, Amelia’s Arena Retreat in Parramore is the home built around that commute, a few minutes from Creative Village and from the Orlando Health campus as well.

10Around Washington Shores and Pine Hills

Piedmont sits in Washington Shores, an established residential neighborhood by Camping World Stadium with mature trees and generous lots. Nikki's Place on South Orange Blossom Trail has served soul food since 1999, and for a bigger weekly shop the Walmart Supercenter on West Princeton Street or the Publix at The Paramount on Lake Eola downtown are both a short drive. Lake Lorna Doone Park, a twelve-acre city park just north of Camping World Stadium, has a walking loop and outdoor fitness stations, and the Downtown Orlando YMCA on North Mills Avenue is a full family gym with two pools a few minutes east.

Entertainment Home and Cozy Home both sit in Pine Hills, Entertainment Home about 4 minutes from the Central Florida Fairgrounds. Presidente Supermarket, a Latin grocer at 2722 North Pine Hills Road near Silver Star Road, and Caribbean Supercenter, on West Colonial Drive, cover Latin and Caribbean groceries close by, and Barnett Park, also on West Colonial, has walking trails, courts and a splash pad that runs through the warm months, useful for an afternoon off between classes or grading. A 24-hour Planet Fitness sits out on Silver Star Road toward Ocoee for anyone keeping a gym habit through the semester. Both neighborhoods are residential and quiet, so evenings and weekends are calm.

11What's in the house

Every home comes furnished and ready from the first night: beds and linens, a stocked kitchen, a washer and dryer, Wi-Fi, and private parking in a driveway, carport or parking pad. The exact inclusions for the house you book are confirmed in writing before you arrive.

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

None of the four homes near the West Campus has a pool; they are residential houses. Bed and bath counts are the counts in each home's own listing, and sofas are not counted as beds. Beyond the standard list, Piedmont adds a game corner with a foosball table and arcade basketball, Entertainment Home has its own foosball table and table tennis, and Meet. Play. Stay. has a full-size pool table and a dart board in a dedicated game room; those extras are specific to three of the four homes near the West Campus, and Cozy Home keeps to the standard list. Meet. Play. Stay. also keeps a portable crib on hand for a visiting family with an infant, and Piedmont runs central air conditioning throughout.

12What guests said

These are real reviews from Meet. Play. Stay.'s own Airbnb listing, quoted exactly as guests wrote them, with the reviewer's name and the month. The house carries a 5.0 rating across 34 Airbnb reviews. Every home page carries its own set, and the full collection across the portfolio is on our reviews page.