Every year in the history of the Orange County Convention Center, it has operated at a multi-million-dollar deficit.
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But this year, as managers and allies of the Pentagon-sized edifice seek over half a billion in tourist-tax money to pay for another expansion of the massive meeting place on International Drive, Mark Tester, the convention center’s executive director, said there won’t be an operating shortfall.
“This fiscal year, we’re having our greatest year,” Tester said Tuesday, speaking to the Tourist Development Tax Task Force convened by Mayor Jerry Demings in the first of two meetings this week to evaluate funding proposals for uncommitted revenues generated by the county’s hotel tax. “We will absolutely be returning millions back in TDT.”
He said the convention center as of May had a $10 million operating surplus. In fiscal year 2024-25, it ran a deficit of about $12 million, Tester said.
TDT is the acronym for Tourist Development Tax, the county’s 6% surcharge on the cost of a hotel room, a home-sharing rental or other short-term lodging option. TDT also is known as the bed tax, hotel tax, resort tax or tourist tax; its revenues are forecast for the first time ever to break an annual total of $400 million in this fiscal year.
The current fiscal year ends Sept. 30.
Tester was stumping for $523 million to build a 352,000-square-foot expansion of the . The project would add a 200,000 square-foot space with seating for 20,000, including retractable seating for 8,000. That would allow large conventions to book concerts for their shows.
TDT is currently funding a previously approved, $508 million expansion of the North-South Building.
The task force, which has been asked to evaluate proposals totaling about $3 billion combined, will meet at least two more times, taking up requests next week that include $975 million for a baseball stadium and $750 million to expand the footprint of the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center.
Orange TDT task force receives $3 billion in proposals for stadiums, theaters, museums and more
But the Orange County Convention Center was the headliner of the panel’s five-hour session Tuesday.
Some task force members praised the complex as the tourist corridor’s “economic engine” responsible for generating hundreds of millions in economic impact in direct and “collateral” spending by conventioneers at hotels, area restaurants and shops, and millions more at theme parks and other attractions.
Others pointed out the proposed expansion is “shovel ready” and the county has already shelled out $17 million for its design.
“In the I-Drive area, there are three hotels willing and ready to expand and put in an additional 2,000 rooms the minute this gets approved,” said task force panelist Chris Mueller, representing the I-Drive Resort Area Chamber of Commerce. “You’re talking about bringing in $6 million more a year [in tourist-tax collections].”
Marc Reicher, executive vice president of RIDA Development Corporation, which owns both the Hilton and the 32-story Hyatt Regency Orlando on I-Drive, urged the task force to score the convention center’s proposed expansion as the top project among the 20 that are seeking TDT funding.
“It is the catalyst that provides the money for the other projects we’re fortunate enough to talk about,” he said.
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But Ann Eppinger, a retired municipal investment bank, offered a different view.
“Instead of being excited at the fantastic projects before you, I have a pit in my stomach — because no project mentioned any tourism worker, no one affected with horrible commutes to get to lowly paid jobs, or no joint projects that benefit the local community at large,” she said.
“I see an accumulated wealth of political connections around this table. Those connections got you places at this very table. I encourage you to harness those connections and your expertise to make changes in this [TDT] statute and wish you could vote that no projects be forwarded to the Board of County Commissioners. But I believe this task force was specially structured to not let that be an option.”
The task force has not decided which of the proposals, if any, it will recommend for funding. Commissioners have the final say on funding.
In its Wednesday meeting, the group heard pitches on another list of ideas from a parking garage at Camping World Stadium, to funding the IMMERSE Arts Festival in downtown Orlando, to a freshwater aquarium and three separate museums commemorating Florida history, Zora Neale Hurston and local natural history.
On Aug. 5, the panel will hear at least a half-dozen more appeals before it completes its work next month. The biggest of the proposals is a ballpark projected to be built on county-owned land near the Convention Center and expected to cost nearly a billion dollars, planned in hopes of luring a Major League Baseball team to International Drive. Another would fund an ambitious expansion of the downtown Orlando campus of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts priced at $750 million.
Kimberly Buchheit, representing Apopka on the task force, pressed county leaders Wednesday to disclose how much TDT is available to fund the projects.
“I just feel like I need to know how much money we’re looking at as the excess,” she said. “We have a lot of great projects, but I don’t want to put a great project that we don’t have money for in front of a project that is realistic.”
Roseann Harrington, the chief of staff to Demings, said she intended to discuss that with the mayor next week, as he recovers after prostate surgery this week.
But the panel decided Tuesday it won’t further consider a proposed children’s museum.
County attorney Whitney Evers said the application for the Central Florida Children’s Museum, which is seeking $450 million, was ineligible because its developers have not incorporated as a not-for-profit entity as required by state law. The museum wanted $30 million in “initial development funding” this year and $420 million more in subsequent fiscal years, according to the application submitted by Amanda Newstreet, an art teacher at an Ocoee Montessori School and founder and CEO of the organization proposing the project.
A site was not listed on the application for the museum, proposed to be 600,000 square feet.
“This not-for-profit attraction will use Orlando’s world-leading expertise in themed entertainment, immersive storytelling and simulation to transform mathematics, physics, engineering, computer science, coding, robotics, semiconductors, aerospace and future technologies into experiences children can see, feel, test and build,” Newstreet wrote in the application.
“For visitors, the museum will elevate the International Drive vacation experience by offering a meaningful destination that families leave changed— inspired, curious, and more deeply connected to Central Florida’s natural environment, history, industries, and future.”
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Sentinel staff writer Ryan Gillespie contributed to this report.