It’s likely that no new nightclubs will be coming to downtown Orlando for at least another six months. Credit: Photo by Jim Leatherman
In another change to nightlife in downtown Orlando, this weekend sees the City implementing the second phase of a plan to fundamentally change the flow of both pedestrian and vehicle traffic on Orange Avenue.

Starting Friday, Jan. 17, current barricades along a stretch of Orange Avenue downtown — put in place in November after the Halloween shooting in the area — will be expanded to include center-lane barricades on Pine Street and Central Boulevard. It’s in part an effort to instill habits in downtown pedestrians to stay on, or in close proximity to, sidewalks. The roads are currently still closed to cars.

This is all in service to theoretically making downtown at night a safer proposition for Orlandoans. There is no exact date yet for the Orange Avenue switchover, which will open all three lanes of the street to automobiles on weekends — and eventually, turn the one-way street into a two-way thoroughfare.

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This article appears in Jan 15-21, 2025.