It was nothing short of a newsworthy year in the City Beautiful, filled with ups, downs and plenty of surprises. We said goodbye to iconic eateries while we welcomed in some big new bites. We saw storied theme park ride closures while we geared up for new magical worlds. We cheered on abortion-rights groups, labor unions and community-centered organizations while we faced business struggles and legislative changes.
But through it all, we remained strong. Here are 22 of the city’s biggest W’s and L’s we took home in 2024.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, has officially filed paperwork to run in 2027 to replace Orlando’s longtime Mayor Buddy Dyer. Already boasting a number of early endorsements from local, state and federal elected officials, Dr. Eskamani said Monday she intends to bring a “people-centered approach” to city leadership if elected. Read full story.
While Orlando has in the past been crowned a leading foodie destination and LGBTQ-friendly city, it appears the City Beautiful can’t escape its designation as one of the most cost-burdened metro regions in the U.S., where a majority of its renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent. According to a report from Apartment List, the number of cost-burdened renter households is at a record high, with the Orlando metro ranking No. 4 nationwide, closely trailing Florida’s Tampa, Miami and Cape Coral regions. Read full story.
This September saw a slate of long-beloved Orlando-area restaurants announce permanent closures. We’ve lived the final days of Pom Pom’s, Farm + Haus, Ethos Vegan Kitchen, Hamburger Mary’s and Graffiti Junktion (to name just a few). Read full story.
Among this fall’s rapid-fire restaurant closings was supposed to be Maitland mainstay Kappy’s Subs, which was miraculously able to stay open after all. The sandwich shop, open since 1967, reached a lease agreement with property owner Bolen Properties — after immense community outcry and support. Read full story.
Orlando City Council this year unanimously voted to pass a new ordinance, which took effect this fall, to permanently limit the opening of new nightclubs to one nightclub per block in Orlando’s downtown entertainment area, requiring a 300-foot distance between each new club. Existing nightclubs that don’t conform to this distance limit would be grandfathered in under the proposal, although they could be prevented from expanding under these rules. Read full story.
Disney actually did it — they crossed the line and will remove Muppet*Vision 3D and the surrounding Muppet Courtyard to make way for a Monsters, Inc. land. The Muppets won’t be gone for good, but closing Muppet*Vision 3D and the courtyard irrevocably taints the legacy of Hollywood Studios as a once-great park themed around the magic of Disney moviemaking, if you ask us. Read full story.
After years of development and construction, Orlando’s newest theme park has an opening date, and it’s soon. Universal’s fourth park in Orlando, Epic Universe brings five immersive worlds to life. Towering portals will transport guests to Super Nintendo World, Ministries of Magic in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the monster-filled Dark Universe, an island of dragons inspired by How to Train Your Dragon and a futuristic steampunk realm known as Celestial Park. Read full story.
After facing an aggressive opposition campaign from anti-abortion activists and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, voters rejected Amendment 4 this November. It sought to reverse Florida’s six-week abortion ban and enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution. The proposed constitutional amendment would have guaranteed the right to abortion up to the point of fetal viability — equal to about 24 weeks of pregnancy — and would have limited anti-abortion Florida legislators from restricting abortion access any further. Read full story.
Florida voters on the whole may have not reached the 60 percent majority to enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution, but it shouldn’t go unnoticed that Orange County voted overwhelmingly to approve the amendment. Amendment 4 received nearly 65 percent of the vote in Orange County, according to unofficial election results from the Supervisor of Elections Office. Read full story.
The administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis this year sought to punish a doctor who violated the state’s 24-hour rule on abortion by stripping away her medical license. The push to revoke the license of Dr. Candace Cooley went forward even though an administrative law judge who looked at the physician’s actions suggested a $10,000 fine and a reprimand. The Florida Board of Medicine rebuffed the DeSantis administration’s push, but not without dissent. Read full story.
Florida’s strength was tested this fall with two back-to-back hurricanes slamming into the state in less than two weeks. The wrath of both Helene and Milton is largely behind us, but cleanup and restoration efforts remain in full force in Central Florida, as do the post-natural disaster revelations. One major takeaway: Listen to your local meteorologist, not an unqualified self-proclaimed “expert” on social media. Read full story.
City of Orlando officials confirmed early this year that several birds at Lake Eola Park had been infected with avian influenza, also known as bird flu. The announcement came after officials found several birds had died at the park. Within two weeks, four swans had been found dead. Read full story.
The waters of Orlando’s Lake Eola Park ruffled some new feathers this year with the addition of six new swans: Two Australian black, two whooper and two trumpeter swans were the city’s newest winged residents this summer. The two Australian black swans were said to replace two of the same species that were allegedly killed by a river otter and bird flu. Read full story.
The Orange County board of commissioners decided to sell a piece of land formerly owned by the dissolved nonprofit OnePulse Foundation, which had been bought for a proposed Pulse Museum. The museum, a project that never came to be, was intended to commemorate the mass shooting that occurred at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub in 2016 that killed 49 people and wounded over 50. Read full story.
Eva’s Casita, a peer respite center run by the local nonprofit Peer Support Space, officially opened its doors this summer — the first of its kind in Central Florida, and the first and only in the nation designed and led by LGBTQ+ mental-health advocates. Peer Support Space was formed five and a half years ago, in the wake of the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub. The center is named after the late Eva Fajardo, a local advocate for queer, Hispanic and migrant communities who passed away 18 months ago, as she and the nonprofit were working hard to make the new respite a reality. Fajardo was a “therapist for therapists” after the Pulse tragedy that killed 49 people, says Yasmin Flasterstein, executive director and co-founder of Peer Support Space. Read full story.
The Orange County Classroom Teachers Association — representing nearly 14,000 staff — fought the district to enshrine pumping rights at work in the union’s next contract. The district initially shot down the proposal, but the Orange County School Board overrode the district’s position and largely approved the union’s requested contract language. Read full story.
Workers at five nonunion restaurants at Disney Springs in Orlando launched an effort to unionize this year, calling on their employer to allow for a fair process, free from unlawful intimidation. Unlike the tens of thousands of Disney World employees who have been unionized for decades, the roughly 300 workers at Enzo’s Hideaway, Pizza Ponte, Morimoto Asia, Maria and Enzo’s, and The Edison — all subcontracted restaurants on Disney property — are technically employed by the Patina Restaurant Group. Employees of the restaurants at Disney Springs said they felt like “second-class citizens” compared to unionized Disney workers. Read full story.
