Will Orange County back Pat Williams’ $1.7 billion stadium plan to lure Tampa Bay Rays?

He’s trying.

He’s trying to bring baseball to Orlando.

Although it seems like the longest of longshots that he can lure the Tampa Bay Rays or a Major League Baseball expansion franchise to Central Florida with the promise of a new stadium, at least Pat Williams is trying.

At 83 years old, Orlando Magic co-founder Williams obviously still has lots of life left in him because he is refusing to let Orlando’s baseball dream die.

In his latest attempt to get city movers and shakers behind his effort, Williams and his proposed baseball team – the Orlando Dreamers – announced this week that they have filed a formal application with the Orange County Tourist Development task force to help fund a $1.7 billion baseball stadium project that he hopes would either lure the Rays to Orlando or persuade Major League Baseball to award an expansion franchise to the city.

The project would fund a new 45,000-seat domed stadium as well as retail shops, restaurants, office space and 1,000 or so hotel rooms around the stadium. The application calls for the Tourist Development Tax (TDT) funds to pay for $975 million, with the remainder being funded by the MLB team (either the Rays or the owner of an expansion team).

“This magnificent ballpark would be a tourist attraction unto itself,” Williams said during a conversation Saturday. “The ballpark would be six miles from Disney, six miles from Universal and right across the street from SeaWorld. Our economic impact study shows it would generate $40 billion for the county over the next 30 years.”

Williams says the plan is to build the new ballpark on a 35½ -acre plot of land next to the Aquatica water park just across International Drive from SeaWorld. According to Williams, the economic and fiscal impact study was conducted by JLL, a local firm that specializes in such studies. Williams says a baseball team and stadium would have immense economic impact for Central Florida and make Orlando even more of a destination location for tourists. That is why he believes the Tourist Development Tax, which was created and earmarked to fund tourism-related endeavors, is the perfect funding mechanism to bring Major League Baseball to Orlando. Last year the TDT set a record with more than $360 million in collections.

“Orange County might be the most unique county in America,” Williams said. “Since the pandemic, our tourism has come back and is better than ever – and it’s only going to continue to grow. Our resort [tourist development] tax makes more in one month than Tampa’s resort tax makes in an entire year. We can help build a stadium in ways that other regions cannot.”

However, it’s no secret that there are at least a dozen entities standing in line for their cut of the TDT. Camping World Stadium, for instance, is due for another makeover that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. And the Orange County Convention Center wants more than a half-a-billion dollars to expand again.

When WESH-Channel 2 asked Orange County comptroller Phil Diamond if the TDT could fund all the projects that are requesting money, he replied frankly: “The short answer is no. I don’t see any way. …”

The TDT task force will review all the applications and make its allocation recommendations in July. Unless local leaders get on board, it seems like a longshot that the task force would approve spending nearly a billion dollars for a baseball stadium, but I love that Williams continues to push the concept.

He’s been trying to motivate Orlando leaders to get excited about making a run at the Rays for nearly four years – with none of our politicians endorsing the idea, at least publicly. But if there was ever an opportunity for us to make a run at Major League Baseball, now is the time. The red-hot Rays have the best record in baseball and started the season with an historic 13-game winning streak, but still they have the sixth-worst attendance in the league at outdated and out-of-the-way Tropicana Field.

The team has been trying to get a new stadium built in Tampa for years, but still there has been little progress. Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has made it crystal clear that time is running out. Manfred has gone on record as saying he would like to pursue expansion, but only after the league resolves the long-standing stadium issues in Oakland and Tampa Bay.

Guess what? The stadium issue in Oakland was just resolved last month when the A’s announced they will soon be moving to Las Vegas, where a new stadium is about to be built. Williams, who has been in contact with Manfred and Rays ownership, sees no reason why Orlando shouldn’t be a landing spot for the Rays just as Vegas was for the A’s. Rays owner Stuart Sternberg said before the season that if the team does not get a stadium deal done in Tampa Bay by the end of this calendar year, “Then there’s not a deal to be done.”

Translation: It would be time for the Rays to relocate to a city that does have a stadium plan in place.

“Mr. Sternberg needs to know that he can slide right on over here to Orlando and we’ll help him build a stadium,” Williams said. “The Rays have been trying for two decades to get a new ballpark in Tampa, and they simply haven’t been able to do it.

“Orlando is the 17th-largest media market in America and the largest media market without a big-league baseball team,” Williams added. “And it won’t be long until we pass three markets that are ahead of us – Denver, Detroit and Minneapolis-St. Paul. Orlando is ready for baseball and this is our best and maybe our last chance. Time is running out on Tampa Bay, and the question is: Can they get a ballpark built? More importantly, can we get a ballpark built?”

Pat Williams is trying.

He’s desperately trying to live up to the famous words of his idol Walt Disney – one of the subjects of the more than 100 books Williams has written.

“If you can dream it, you can do it,” Disney once said.

It sure would be nice if some of our local leaders would jump on the Orlando Dreamers baseball bandwagon and at least investigate the possibility of getting into the game.

Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on Twitter @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. on FM 96.9 and AM 740.