Orlando baseball advocate Pat Williams asks hotel tax task force to swing for the fences

Pat Williams went to bat Wednesday for a chance to bring a Major League Baseball franchise to Orlando, lobbying for nearly $1 billion in tourist tax revenue to build a glass-domed stadium in the tourist district.

“This will be a rising tide for tourism,” he promised members of a task force empaneled by Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings to recommend future uses for the money. “This is going to be a must-visit destination for tourists coming to Orlando. They’ll make additional visits … stay longer, bring friends with them.”

The stadium was the biggest of four big-dollar projects outlined for funding to the Orange County Tourist Development Tax Citizen Advisory Task Force Wednesday.

Baseball, convention center, arts seek big chunks of tourist tax money

Williams, 83, co-founder of the Orlando Magic, leads the Orlando City Baseball Dreamers, a group hoping to persuade MLB to put a baseball team in the nation’s tourism capital whether by expansion or relocation.

But he tried Wednesday to persuade the task force to pledge public resources for baseball.

“If we don’t do that,” asked Ken Robinson, representing Central Florida hoteliers, “if the Orange County commission doesn’t agree to do that, are you saying there’s zero chance for baseball in Orlando?”

Yes, zero chance, Williams replied.

Other baseball skeptics said the county has more pressing needs for tourist tax funds, known as TDT, or Tourist Development Tax.

Yes, Williams said, but state law doesn’t allow TDT to be spent on affordable housing or education.

“This is all money that must go to developing tourism,” he said.

The task force also heard pitches to expand the award-winning Orange County Regional History Museum; build a 40,000-square-foot addition to the Mennello Museum of Art; and add $60 million to a fund that has helped finance projects at the Orlando Science Center, Plaza Live and Harriett’s Orlando Ballet Centre.

Task force member Eric Gray, who described all the proposed projects as “wonderful and very worthy” of TDT funding, wondered if the panel could discuss a change in strategy to allow revenues to be spent on public services required to accommodate the million visitors who sleep in the Orlando metro every night.

“Visitors to this community don’t participate in all the same activities as our residents do but they do flush toilets, take showers, use emergency rooms, roads and buses, and sometimes they even commit crimes,” said Gray, executive director of the Christian Service Center, which fights hunger and homelessness.

He said visitors swell the metro area from 2.5 million people to 3.6 million, a figure that would make the Orlando area the 18th largest in the nation (up from 23rd) and second in the state behind only Miami.

“We already understand some services such as public transport and law enforcement are somewhat underfunded for a metro area of 2.5 million,” Gray said. “When you consider we’re actually a metro area of 3.6 million, it’s important we at least consider options we might have for investment in the community.”

The 6% tax on the cost of a hotel room and other short-term lodging raised $336 million last year.

Task force co-chair Jane Healy said the panel should stick with ranking requests according to the criteria suggested by county staff — a project’s likelihood to expand tourism, to succeed, and its predicted return on investment.

But she left the door open to a broader discussion before the task force concludes its work.

“I don’t see anything keeping us from making a recommendation to the county commission that we would like to see the uses expanded,” she said. “I know there’s a lot of interest here in doing that.”