Orange County commissioners, over the course of a five-hour meeting Monday, moved forward with a controversial tourist tax spending plan that includes $350 million in public money for an expansion of the privately owned Dr. Phillips Center, $52.5 million for a parking garage at Camping World Stadium, and $46 million for a UCF soccer stadium.
The spending plan is funded by revenue collected through a 6 percent tax levied on hotel stays in the county, known as the tourist development tax, and totals $786 million for 13 projects (we’ll include a full list at the bottom of this article).
An earlier spending proposal gave the Dr. Phillips Center an extra $50 million for its expansion project. But that was reduced at the last minute by county leaders — with the CEO’s blessing — in response to concerns about how that would affect the county’s reserves. Originally, the nonprofit performing arts center had requested $750 million, according to county staff.
“I think we’re making a big mistake,” county commissioner Kelly Semrad stated, ahead of the vote Monday. “The timing is so awkward.”
Is the timing awkward?
The spending plan was approved in a 6-1 vote, with Semrad as the lone dissenter. The vote came just two weeks ahead of an election that will determine the makeup of a majority of the Orange County Commission.
Three of seven current Commission seats are on the ballot next month — including Orange County mayor. Orange County voters will also pick two inaugural county commissioners for Districts 6 and 7 — two new districts created through a vote by Orange County voters in 2024.
“Yes, our tenure is — for some of us — is just months away,” said outgoing Mayor Jerry Demings. “But it doesn’t mean that, while we have just months, that we should just sit here and do nothing.”
“I have put my life on the line for this community,” added Demings, who formerly served as Orange County Sheriff and as Orlando Police Chief.
“My blood, my sweat, my tears have gone into working on behalf of this community,” he said defensively. “I will not retreat from working in my home and taking care of people who live here. There’s not a decision that I will make that I believe will hurt the people of Orange County.”
“There’s not a decision that I will make that I believe will hurt the people of Orange County.”
Orange County mayor Jerry Demings
Revolt over TDT spending
This defensiveness came after dozens of community members, including unionized workers at major theme parks — and even representatives of tourism giants Universal and SeaWorld themselves — urged the board of county commissioners to press pause on the tourist tax spending plan.
Critics argued the timeline for determining which projects to fund with the county’s tourist development tax — led by a community advisory task force of 34 members — was rushed. Industry stakeholders, including a representative for SeaWorld, argued that industry participation in the decision was “limited.”
A letter signed by several local hospitality unions, a slate of local Democratic state lawmakers, and community groups including the Sunrise Movement and Support Orlando Shelters, urged the County Commission ahead of the vote to allow more time to review the size and scope of the proposed TDT projects.
“It doesn’t happen that you get a trifecta where workers, employees, labor unions, businesses and special interests are all asking for a pause unless something needs to be paused,” said Semrad, a professor of hospitality at the University of Central Florida. “This is an unusual coalition, and it’s something this board should pay attention to.”
County staff countered that, in fact, major tourism interests had declined to participate in the process. “[Mayor Demings] did actually offer three positions to tourism, the three theme parks — Disney, Universal, SeaWorld — and they did not choose to put somebody on the task force,” said Demings’ chief of staff Roseann Harrington.
County leaders also noted that there are 30 hours of public task force meetings, available to view online, that support the fact that this was a thoughtful and thorough process.
Ella Wood, political director and organizer for the labor union Unite Here Local 737, was a member of the 34-member task force who helped determine the spending plan. She joined the coalition Monday urging the county to pause the TDT approval process.
“We voted on which projects generally to move forward for further consideration,” she acknowledged during the public comment period. “We explicitly didn’t consider how much and in fact didn’t know anything about the funds available until the last day.”
The task force reviewed over $3 billion in funding requests total over the summer, including a $46 million request for a UCF soccer stadium that, according to Wood, was met with lukewarm support.
A version of that request was slipped into the final spending plan by Demings’ staff, regardless, without the task force’s recommendation.
“I want to ask you all to respect the work of the task force enough to understand that we did not deliver a mandate asking you to spend all available money,” Wood stated.
Preparing for the future
Concerns were also voiced about the return on investment these publicly subsidized projects would produce, including community impact, job creation, and what they would truly do to attract tourists whose spending helps to support the small businesses that are here full-time.
There are also ongoing efforts to change how TDT funds can be used. Under state law, there are currently limitations on what the hundreds of millions of dollars the county generates in TDT annually can support.
Local Democratic state lawmakers have tried to change the law in Tallahassee to allow TDT to be used to pay for pressing needs like affordable housing, transit and transportation infrastructure. At least 40 percent of TDT, under current law, must be used for tourism marketing.
The tourism industry has lobbied against efforts to change that, but with elections around the corner, some advocates are hopeful that real change could materialize in the coming years. Both of Florida’s gubernatorial candidates have signaled a willingness to sign off on TDT flexibility, if elected.
“Why don’t we wait and see and maybe we can use [these] funds for transit and housing?” said Nicholas Vitale, speaking on behalf of the youth-led climate justice organization Sunrise Movement. “If we want any venue to succeed, you’ve got to get people there — not only tourists, but also locals, both as patrons and workers. Because the tourism economy doesn’t magically operate on its own.”
Demings, however, expressed skepticism toward the “wait and see” approach. Supporters of TDT reform, after all, have been advocating for changes to state law for years.
“We don’t operate as a board of county commission based upon ‘what if.’ We operate in the realm of what is,” he said.
Several county commissioners, however, expressed support for smaller, less controversial projects recommended for approval outside the booming I-Drive tourist district. For instance: $25 million for a children’s museum in Winter Garden, $20 million for the creation of a historic district and Community Redevelopment Agency in Eatonville, and $12.5 million for Immerse, an arts and culture festival in downtown Orlando.
Not all of the projects will receive TDT funding all at once. For some projects, funding won’t kick in until anywhere from 2027 to 2029. However, County Comptroller Phil Diamond confirmed that, based on a model of TDT revenue estimates, the county will not have any additional available funding for other TDT-funded projects until 2033.
With Amendment 3 on the ballot this November — a constitutional amendment that could wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars in property tax revenue for Orange County annually, if passed — critics worried the spending plan is ill-timed.
“People are deciding right now whether or not they should vote yes on property tax Amendment 3,” said Semrad. “We say, ‘Don’t defund us. We need your money to operate.’ But we give away a billion dollars to tourism. … It’s not the narrative that sells in the polling booth to protect our funding.”
Here’s a full list of the projects included in the TDT spending plan:
- $350M for the expansion of the Dr. Phillips Center (a new theater, outdoor auditorium, additional parking spaces, etc.)
- $52.5M for a parking garage at Camping World Stadium
- $46M for a soccer stadium and track facility at UCF
- $50M for the creation of an Orange County Eco-Tourism Grant Program
- $50M for an Orange County Natural Resource Tourism Infrastructure Grant Program
- $75M for an Orange County Application Review Committee Grant program
- $12M for an Orange Audubon Natural History Museum at Apopka Birding Park
- $60M for Dr. Phillips Charities’ Eatonville Museum of Culture and History
- $25M for I AM Children’s Museum in Winter Garden
- $30M for a City of Ocoee golf club and conference campus
- $20M for an Eatonville Heritage Tourism District and town of Eatonville CRA
- $12.5M for Creative City’s Immerse Festival in Orlando
- ~$3M for Orange County Arts and Cultural Affairs (i.e. for additional arts funding, particularly for smaller arts organizations)
