The Orlando Dreamers are asking for $975 million of Tourist Development Tax dollars from Orange County to build a mixed-used development that includes a major league baseball stadium and expansion team.
The Dreamers made the pitch Wednesday to the county’s Tourist Development Tax Citizen Advisory Task Force, which provides input to the county on where the tax collected from hotel stays and other short-term rentals should be spent.
An economic analysis by the Dreamers estimated the impact of the stadium and MLB expansion team playing on I-Drive will be more than $72 billion over 30 years, and it will bring in an additional annual average of $31.7 million of TDT revenues.
Andrew Herdliska, the Chief Marketing Officer with the Dreamers, said the project would use tourism to improve the lives of residents.
“We view the task as somewhat a function of a return on investment, and this is the type of project that we feel TDT funds were designed for,” Herdliska said. “This is going to be something that brings major attention to Orlando, brings tourists to Orlando, extends stays in Orlando, creates jobs, drives economic impact. We feel it's going to be a catalyst for transportation, and it's going to have oversized or outsized economic impact. “
The company plans to employ over 38,000 people for construction, and create over 52,000 permanent jobs. The Dreamers have already secured $2 billion in private capital for the baseball side of things, like team acquisition and the stadium.
The proposal from the Dreamers is just one of the proposals from local organizations, like a project in Eatonville. Dr. Philips Inc., a charity organization, is asking for $60 million in TDT dollars to build a cultural center on the Hungerford property in Eatonville.
The land was previously home to the Hungerford school, the first school for Black children in Central Florida. Dr. Phillips Inc's Ken Robinson said in addition to donating the land to the project, the charity plans to fund $20 million towards the center.
That includes building things like a museum, a heritage trail and a festival space that has the capacity to hold 3,000 people.
“Imagine you're driving here two years from now, three years from now, four years from now,” Robinson said. “You're on I-4 and you look over, and what you see is a campus, a fully immersed, a fully activated town. You have the festival space in the middle that I said could host 3,000 people, up on the top left, you have the cultural museum, two stories right on Main Street, Kennedy Boulevard. But then go further and think about the Heritage Trail inside of the park itself, and how that starts to get activated year round, and think about the campus overall.”
The charity bought the historic 117-acre Hungerford property in the town earlier this year from the Orange County Public Schools.
“It's not just one hour, one day at the cultural center,” Robinson said. “It's everything. It's to bring families together to allow them to participate in this, and not just to come for one day, but reasons to come back forever.”
The final TDT Citizen Task Force meeting is on August 11.
