Unless I’ve been derelict in my duties as a category tagger, the last mention of the Orlando Magic around these parts came in 2017, when a Florida state rep proposed outlawing the construction or renovation of sports facilities on public land. (His bill went nowhere, obviously.) That six-year lull ends now:
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer outlined a plan Tuesday to use tourist-tax revenue to pay for an upgrade of Camping World Stadium, improvements to Amway Center and an addition to the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.
Not counting interest, the bill would be over $700 million — including $400 million for the stadium and $256 million for Amway — and require the city to issue bonds that it would pay off with future revenue from the tourist development tax.
Amway Center is where the Magic play; Camping World Stadium is where the Citrus Bowl is played, and used to be known (wait for it) as the Citrus Bowl; the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center, but would also be getting only pennies on the dollar here, so let’s never speak of it again. Buddy Dyer has been mayor of Orlando for long enough that he was there to shoot down attempts for the city to get a cut of stadium revenues in exchange for helping pay for the Orlando City S.C. soccer stadium that eventually opened in 2017. $700 million is a stack of twenties 5.5 miles high.
Some questions and answers:
Wut
That is not technically a question.
$700 million? Seriously?
You probably should direct that to Buddy Dyer, but yes, apparently he is serious.
How old are the buildings, anyway?
The Amway Center opened in 2010, replacing the Amway Arena, which opened in 1989. (Three guesses what company the DeVos family, which owns the Magic, gets its money from.) Camping World Stadium was built way back in 1936, but has been renovated multiple times since, most recently just two years ago.
Whose pocket would this money come out of?
The tourist taxes are collected by Orange County, not the city of Orlando, which may explain some of Dyer’s enthusiasm for the idea.
What if there are cost overruns?
Dyer said, “The city will take on the obligation of constructing [both projects] and any cost overruns for that, which we think is a substantial risk in any type of construction project right now as prices keep going up.”
He said that like it’s a good thing?
This seems to have been part of a reassurance to the county that if they take care of the first $700 million, Dyer will cover whatever’s left with city money. But, yes, he used the fact that construction price inflation is rampant as an argument for the city taking on cost overruns, that is a thing that happened.
What could Orlando and Orange County possibly get in return that would be worth more than $700 million?
“We believe these are community buildings that benefit the entire region,” said Dyer, which doesn’t answer at all how renovating them would make them benefit the region by an additional $700 million. The Magic’s lease goes until 2035, and there’s been no talk of an extension, so it’s not clear if Orlando-area taxpayers would get anything from them in return for their money. (The Citrus Bowl, needless to say, isn’t threatening to move out of the Citrus Bowl.)
Am I, an imaginary FAQ interrogator, the only one actually asking that question?
Some county commissioners asked Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings earlier in the month if the DeVoses would extend their lease in exchange for arena renovations; it’s not clear if they got an answer.
What else could the money be used for?
Theoretically, anything. In practice, the tourist tax is earmarked for promoting tourism, which lhas argely meant giving money to tourist attractions. Earlier this month the county commission voted to spend $560 million on expanding the county’s convention center, something they also failed to explain how it would pay off in increased tourist activity.
What happens now?
We all laugh and point! As to whether the Orange County commission meeting does the same, we’ll have to wait until its next meeting, which appears to be a week from Tuesday — can’t hardly wait!
Buddy Dyer has been around long enough that he was among those who signed off on the original billion-dollar deal to build the new Scamway Arena and performing art center, along with the Citrus Bowl “renovations,” in the first place. Basically his entire tenure has been one massive giveaway to real estate developers, construction companies, and tourist interests… and seeing as he keeps getting re-elected (with ever-shrinking turnouts, it might be worth noting), he’s been able to pass off these ornaments as a central part of his grand legacy for years.
With all that being said, the fact that Florida counties are only allowed to divert tourist tax dollars toward things that tourists and tourist interests want — as opposed to giving out even creature comforts to those who actually live here, let alone on things that us residents need — is, and has been, the bigger issue for years.
I am looking at the Camping World Stadium website now. Under upcoming events, they have 9 days scheduled on the calendar from Nov 3 through March 2 (121 total dates). I think winter, when it is cold in many parts of the U.S., would be the most likely time for people to visit Orlando. This seems like an incredibly bad ROI.
Surely with renovations, the stadium cost host 30-40 Taylor Swift concerts a year.
Doesn’t UCF play there? Or do they have their own stadium?
UCF moved from the Citrus Bowl to an on campus stadium in 2007, which I’m sure is due for a multi billion dollar renovation any day now.
And the closest upcoming event is the EDC, where all of the acts and crowds are gathered outside of the stadium — specifically, where Tinker Field used to stand — rather than inside.
It’ll never stop being hilarious that the City of Orlando centered its World Cup bid around a venue that was, by degrees, the worst among all of the prospective host cities. Not that it was ever going to become a host city again with both Miami and Atlanta in the picture, but there was no chance even a renovated Citrus Bowl was going to be deemed good enough.
But that’s the whole point of this much needed investment… with several hundred million dollars in improvements, I’m sure the former Citrus Bowl could move from 9 events to maybe 12 or so in that same time period. A 33% increase!!!
Though not mentioned specifically, renovations to Camping World Stadium would make it a temporary home for the Florida-Georgia college football game and the Jacksonville Jaguars.
EverBank Stadium in Jax is being renovated at taxpayer expense (of course). UF and UGA want to keep their annual rivalry game at a neutral site rather than playing on campus. The Jaguars have two options — continue playing in Jax at reduced seating capacity for 2 seasons, or go to a neutral site that meets NFL standards.
95% of the points made in this article lead me to believe that you have zero understanding on the subject you are covering.
If the county commission needs to actually explain to you how investing money into the second largest convention center in the country—located in the heart of the tourist corridor—brings more tourists and revenue to the city of Orlando, and how it generates millions of dollars in profits for the surrounding businesses (hotels, restaurants, attractions, etc.), then… Wow, just wow.
Convention centers, if anything, tend to be *worse* public investments than stadiums, given that there’s an increasing glut of centers chasing a shrinking number of conventions. Heywood Sanders has spelled this out eloquently in his book “Convention Center Follies” — you can get the gist from the excerpts available here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=rFGAAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ViewAPI&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false
Orlando, as Sanders points out, is a bit of an outlier in that its center still does decent business, thanks to people wanting an excuse to take a business trip to Disney World. But that still doesn’t mean that spending $560 million on upgrading the convention center is going to be able to generate $560 million of new benefits for the city.
Decent business…
The past fiscal year the Orlando Convention Center had a total economic impact of $2.4 billion.
Gonna need to see a source for that.
https://www.pcma.org/orange-county-convention-center-economic-impact/
https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2023/05/05/florida-orange-county-convention-center-project.amp.html
http://orlandoconvention.com/Portals/0/Library/About-Us/Marketing-Toolbox/docs/22_OCC_0003_Annual%20Report_R4V1%20-web-CERT.pdf
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2022/03/14/health-care-convention-1st-to-cancel-at-pandemics-start-returns-to-orlando-raising-hopes/
Thanks!
So, what that number represents is “economic activity,” which isn’t the same as actual economic impact — it’s just money that changes hands at a location. As economist Victor Matheson has put it, “Imagine an airplane landing at an airport and everyone gets out and gives each other a million bucks, then gets back on the plane. That’s $200 million in economic activity, but it’s not any benefit to the local economy.” The amount of money that actually filters out into the local economy — via conventiongoers renting hotel room that employ local residents, going out to dinner, etc. — is somewhat less than that.
On top of that, though, what we really want to know here is the *incremental* impact of a convention center expansion: If Orange County spends $560 million on upgrades, how many more people will come to town, and how much more money will they spend than if the upgrades hadn’t happened?
In his book “Convention Center Follies,” economist Heywood Sanders reported that in order to meet its stated economic impact goals, the 2003 expansion of the Orange County Convention Center would have needed to see convention attendance nearly double as a result. And attendance did go up — by about 18%. Then after the economy crashed, so did attendance, to where the center had about the same attendance in 2012 as it had in 2000, despite being twice the size.
Sure, conventions are big business, and so are stadiums. But the idea that newer convention centers and newer stadiums mean substantially more business — at least, enough to justify what it costs to build them — just isn’t supported by the numbers.
Ih. Neil, that response by JJ in the 5th response space
(don’t know what else to call it) becomes unreadable. There’s only room for one letter a line, at least on my phone. Is it better on PC?
Don’t know what could be done about this formatting but ugh…..
Fixing the indents on mobile is actually on my to-do list! I should have some time next weekend, let me see what I can do.
Thanks!
Update: Buddy Dyer just got handed another term as Orlando’s mayor following an election that I admittedly had no idea was happening… along with, presumably, most of Orlando, as barely 25,000 people voted in a city of more than 300k residents.* So if nothing else, we’re guaranteed to hear about this stuff more directly from the mayor in the next several years.
* https://enr.electionsfl.org/ORA/3462/Summary/?luyf