Expand the Convention Center? Put a roof on Camping World Stadium? Groups make their pitch to TDT board
A day after Orange County commissioners discussed cobbling together $100 million for scaled-down transportation needs, a task force studying tourist-tax spending heard funding pleas for projects worth more than $1.5 billion.
The requests Wednesday included $800 million to renovate and put a roof on Camping World Stadium and at least $600 million to restart an Orange County Convention Center expansion halted during the pandemic.
The task force meeting was the appointed panel’s fourth as its members sort through over 50 requests for a share of revenue from the hotel tax, which generated a record $336 million in fiscal year 2021-22.
The money comes from a 6% levy added to the cost of a hotel room or home-sharing rental.
The tourist tax goes by a variety of names, including the Tourist Development Tax, or TDT for short, as well as the hotel or bed tax. Its uses are restricted by state statute but Orange County has spent it on tourism promotion, to expand the convention center and help pay for the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, the Amway Center and other cultural venues which attract visitors.
The panel will draft its spending recommendations before the end of the summer.
“We’re in a great position to start this conversation again,” said Mark Tester, the Convention Center’s executive director. “We are driving economic impact to the community, what we ultimately are here to do.”
Before COVID-19 shuttered theme parks in March 2020 and large groups cancelled their in-person gatherings, the county had spent $18 million to add a 200,000-square-foot exhibition hall, an 80,000-square-foot ballroom and another 60,000 square feet of meeting rooms to the sprawling campus.
“We’re not talking here about being the biggest. It’s about being the best,” Tester said.
But he also pointed out the Pentagon-sized complex on International Drive slipped from its perch as the nation’s second-largest convention center to third, falling behind Las Vegas, its chief rival.
“They’re continuing to invest in their facility,” Tester said of Vegas.
Chicago’s McCormick Place ranks as the largest convention center in North America.
Tester said the upgrade of the north-south building, which may cost over $700 million because of increasing construction costs, would help Orange County keep up with a dozen other U.S. convention venues.
While task force members didn’t question the presentations much Wednesday, some have previously expressed skepticism about diverting more TDT dollars to the convention center.
Steve Hogan, CEO of Florida Citrus Sports, said Orlando also needs to further upgrade Camping World Stadium, last renovated in 2014 at a cost of $204 million, if it wants to land more marquee events.
“We need a building competitive enough that we don’t send tens of thousands of guests home from Real Madrid-Juventus FC in a few weeks or LSU-Florida State, saying ‘Wow! Had a great time there [but] that was a rough experience and painful,’ ” he said, citing the upcoming soccer match between two of the world’s best international teams and the giant college-football clash on the season’s opening weekend in September. “We need to send those people away saying ‘pretty great experience all around.’ ”
He described the stadium as “essentially a convention center for sports and entertainment.”
Hogan said sports fans were disappointed when Orlando was passed over as a World Cup site and failed to make even the short list of American venues to host the annual Army-Navy football game.
A renovation could add seats to make the venue more appealing to concert promoters, too.
Other groups also pushed for TDT funding during the four-hour meeting Wednesday, including a not-for-profit group hoping to promote and preserve the legacy of Dr. William Monroe Wells, a Black physician who came to Orlando in 1917.
Wells, one of two doctors who would treat African-American patients in segregated Orlando, delivered over 5,500 babies in Central Florida during his medical career, practicing primarily in the Parramore area.
He also established the Casino on South Street, a nightclub for Blacks that attracted world-famous entertainers, including Ray Charles, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and Lionel Hampton.
