Downtown Orlando urban park and ‘creative epicenter’ Art Squared aims for a winter opening

There looks to be a new arts venue and public “creative epicenter” coming soon(ish?) to downtown Orlando.

The City District — the Main Street district organization that encompasses downtown’s central business district and entertainment stakeholders — posted a construction update for this project on their Instagram account this week, and work is continuing apace on the new “urban pocket park” (pictured above in progress). Ground was originally broken for this new venue back in 2021.

Located at the corner of Robinson Street and Orange Avenue, this new outdoor arts venue is slated to offer:

• Affordable gallery space
• Free events
• Open-air seating
• Outdoor café
• Food truck space
• LED video wall
• Stage with a state-of-the-art sound and lights

And sure enough, there’s an accompanying website for Art2 (Art Squared) that promises a winter opening, though whether that means late 2023 or early next year isn’t spelled out explicitly.

Though the project sounds promising, we can’t help being our curmudgeonly selves and recollecting the City of Orlando’s 2020 plans to transform the area between West Washington Street and West Church Street under I-4 into the ambitious “Under-I urban park.” There was much outcry over losing the parking spaces that the Under-I would displace and by 2022, that plan was scrapped to instead use the space for … more parking.

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This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 3, 2023.