>>This week on NewsNight, the development of downtown Orlando.

A look at a number of public space projects, including plans for a new Lake Eola Gateway and the potential costs.

Plus, Brevard County is now finally on track to get a Brightline station.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort and welcome to NewsNight where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in central Florida and how they affect all of us.

First tonight, the reimagination of downtown Orlando.

Recently, the city's community redevelopment agency approved the purchase of four properties as part of a $20 million redevelopment spend.

It's a package deal, and officials say it bolsters the city's project known as DTO 2.0, a sweeping plan to revitalize the downtown redevelopment area.

Orlando's urban core.

>>Aye.

>>Approving plans that could see big changes in downtown Orlando.

Two of the properties the city plans to buy sit at the southwest corner of Lake Eola.

They're adjacent to an urban pocket park developed last year at the corner of Central and Rosalind.

The Community Redevelopment Agency plans to create a Lake Eola gateway at the corner of Orlando's iconic park that draws some 2 million visitors a year.

The CRA says the acquisitions, "hold the promise of a more vibrant and inclusive downtown."

Supporters agree.

>>As more people move into downtown Orlando to live, work and play, the need for green space becomes all the more compelling.

We simply can't afford to forgo this opportunity for the public good and the boost the revitalization will provide the city we all love.

>>The two other properties include a plot on Orange Avenue that's already been turned into a pocket park, and officials say they'll turn into a permanent open space.

And one North Orange Avenue, a historic building that sat empty for around 15 years with proposals to turn it into affordable and attainable housing with a restaurant.

Some commissioners expressed concern over the potential cost of renovating a building that's been empty so long and that lacks parking.

>>We're asking for trouble by spending half of this purchase price, or almost $10 million on a building that sat vacant for 15 years for a reason.

>>It's a package deal where you're going to get all four of them or we're going to get none of them.

And it's an opportunity to get three that we really need and one that's been fallow for 15 years and will be fallow for another 15 years.

I think our staff's as good as anybody in terms of innovative thinking and figuring out ways to go about this.

>>The new purchases are part of a broader plan to rejuvenate parts of the urban core.

The Community Redevelopment Agency in the Downtown Development Board want to turn this area underneath I-4 between Church Street and Washington Avenue into this, a park called the Canopy, which officials say will be an urban oasis.

The city says construction of that project will begin early next year.

All right.

Well, let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studio this week, Brendan O'Connor, the editor in chief of the Bungalow.

Thanks so much for coming back on the program it's been a minute, Brendan.

>>It has.

Thanks for having me.

>>Appreciate it.

Ryan Gillespie, it's also been a minute, writes about Orlando City government for the Orlando Sentinel.

Thanks for being here.

Ryan >>Happy to be here.

>>And Ryan Lynch writes for the Orlando Business Journal.

Good to see you again, Ryan.

Thanks so much for coming in today, guys.

Ryan Gillespie, let me start with you, first of all, on this one, just outline what that project DTO 2.0 envisages in the long run for downtown.

>>Sure it's a lot of things is is probably the simplest way of putting it.

Basically, anything you see downtown is probably going to be included in this plan and that includes everything from all of the major roads that are one way in downtown.

The long term vision over the next probably ten years or so to make those two way streets.

The reason for that, they say, is it's good for business.

They want to bring more different types of businesses to the downtown on the first floor of a lot of those buildings.

And when you have cars going both ways, you make it more walkable, more people are watching pedestrians and also more people are looking at businesses from different ways.

So kind of everything they're doing is trying to turn this downtown neighborhood or downtown area that we probably think of as office space, maybe emptier office space now that a couple of years ago and nightclubs and bars into more of a neighborhood.

A lot more people live downtown now than ever before.

That's growing every year.

One of the largest, if not the largest apartment complex in the history of downtown is set to open soon.

So they really want to make more park space and things like that to appeal to people who want to live downtown.

>>Certainly lots of things changing.

Let's talk about let's break it down by project.

Start with Lake Eola specifically.

There is a Lake Eola masterplan, right?

Ryan Lynch.

I mean, what more do we know about the plans for Gateway that we saw there?

>>Yeah.

So the the master plan kind of laid out a lot of the long term vision for what Lake Eola improvements can look like.

There's been some vision of having some sort of entry way at that path.

I know what was mentioned a couple of years ago.

The little ladies had bought the property in partnership-- >>It used to be a 7-Eleven.

>>Yes, Correct.

Right.

Right.

Near the corner of Roslyn.

And that was eventually turned into a pocket park with the goal of making that a larger gateway.

Obviously, the during the city council meeting, we saw a little bit of a rendering of what it could look like.

But in the long term, they're going to kind of try and figure out what that entryway might look like.

And that would basically give all four corners of the park a unique entryway.

>>And we've kind of covered that development of a pocket park there on the corner of Rosiland and Central before.

Brendan, what do you think about these plans for a for a gateway?

>>Well, what's not to like?

You know, it's a placemaking opportunity.

It's a refresher for for one of the longest going historical public spaces in downtown Orlando.

And so it needs a little bit of a refresh to what we were using Lake Eola for in the past has completely changed.

They're doing almost an event every almost every day now downtown-- >>There are a lot of public events.

>>Yeah.

So they need new electricity infrastructure.

They need better bathrooms.

And so gateways are are also part of that.

You can't sell a house if the front doesn't look as good.

The curb appeal doesn't look good.

So you need a gateway to it that invites people to interact with that space.

>>Lake Eola is one of the most heavily trafficked public parks in the country.

We heard in that C.R.A.

meeting that it gets more visitors than some major national destinations.

Is that why commissioners see a need for improvements?

>>Yeah, for sure.

It's it's one of those things that it's been decades really, since Lake Eola has had substantive changes.

They've added on to it here and there.

If you think about that corner of the Eola house and things like that, but really it kind of goes back to what we were saying a few minutes ago about their DTO plan or DTO 2.0 is if you open up that corner to the rest of downtown, it becomes more inviting to people if they live there.

You know, you can see the fountain from the road if you're walking to dinner or something like that.

It's it's just something that they've really wanted to do for quite some time.

And quite frankly, they haven't been able to they haven't they didn't have a willing seller of this land.

And so they were able to put together this package deal they were going to talk about in a moment, and they felt pretty compelled to move on it when they could.

>>Well, let's talk about it and specifically talk about One North Orange, the plan to turn that into housing and a restaurant.

We heard from Commissioner Gray in that meeting about the concern that this building has been unused, disused for so long.

I mean, what is his concern over buying a property that has been disused for so long?

What are the what are the particular worries about that?

>>I think, you know, it was mentioned during the meeting is about 15 years that the property was vacant.

>>Yeah.

>>Both Commissioner Gray and Commissioner Stewart had talked about some of their concerns with buying a property that was that old.

It was built in the 1920s.

Concerns over a whether that type of project can be done with the kind of floor plate they have for a restaurant.

If they would be able to get all the type of things they would need.

The building isn't parked, so there's-- >>There's no parking for it.

>>No parking at all.

So if you were going to do a restaurant use, that might be a challenge for it's something like, oh, I need to get my deliveries.

And on the flip side, if they're going to do apartments, it's a challenge for residents to find parking because you might be parking in a city garage.

And, you know, obviously the city has a lot of parking in the downtown core, but that takes away from maybe some of their public parking that's there.

>>It has been strange, hasn't it, Brendan, that there's been this historic building slap bang in the middle of Orlando that's been empty.

>>I've been trying to I remember emailing the owner of the building because I wanted to get in there, maybe do some pop ups or something back in the day and just there was no interest.

They'd rather just leave it vacant.

It's not too strange.

The historic properties are tough.

They're smaller footprints for for larger box stores.

That's why you don't see a lot of box stores downtown, because the footprint of these retail spots are just not conducive to modern day shopping.

It's a beautiful building and I actually love that they're kind of taking a stance and investing in preserving what was it, wasn't it one of the the first skyscrapers in downtown Orlando?

And yes, there's no parking, but they also got rid of parking minimums downtown.

So it's not that they're they should be at least emotionally prepared to have to deal with that challenge.

And that's what it is.

It's just a challenge.

>>It's not just these four properties that we're talking about here.

There's also the redevelopment of Bob Carr, plans for Lake Lucerne, all of that.

And we heard commissioners sort of talk about the overarching costs.

Do we get any idea about what they're likely to be or why there are concerns about that?

>>I mean, I guess you have multiple, you know, tens of millions of dollars of projects that are lined up.

And part of the concern as well is that the CRA is going to expire soon and that that could potentially be restarted.

But obviously, you have a short amount of time to get a marquee number of projects together.

You know, they've had these visions for Bob Carr of being this sort of tech hub within the creative village.

You know, there's the Canopy project and and that's obviously a lot of money and it's not like the CRA is not spending it on other things as well.

They're spending on business retention, they're spending on bringing in retail businesses.

They have other costs that they have to do so.

So they're going to have to really juggle the number of projects and make sure that they're able to fund all those in the time they have.

>>Or take out more bonds, which they like doing.

>>That's right.

Just finally, I was kind of interested to get your thoughts on a connection between these redevelopment plans and the sort of security situation in downtown Orlando.

We've seen a lot about crime and how to deal with that security changes in licensing rules, especially since the pandemic.

Do you think commissioners see a connection between the need to rejuvenate that downtown area and improve security?

Ryan first.

>>Yeah, it's really hard to separate those two things really.

For more than two years now, we've commissioners and Mayor Dyer have been talking quite a bit about trying to improve safety downtown.

Like you said, they've kind of flooded the zone with cops and things like that at night.

But really the overarching vision is how do you move a place that's for so long really been centered around the nightlife?

You know, how do you how do you re reorient that into a place that, you know, you want to move and live with your family or that you want to go to the Dr. Philips Center and have dinner and things like that?

And it's hard it's really hard to, you know, bring in the restaurants and things like that.

And so that that's what that's what I think we're seeing here with this building.

This first high rise we were just talking about is the city is putting up a lot of money to try to bring in these restaurants that they've for so long struggled to do.

So they're really kind of being bold in that regard.

We'll see how successful they are, because there are certainly challenges with that building.

>>And I don't want to be a hard case on it, but I do find it hard to correlate an empty the empty One North Orange building with a spike in crime downtown.

I think the spike in crime downtown was something that cities experienced across the nation and some of them are very developed and redeveloped downtown who already had maybe better infrastructure or things that that weren't necessarily geared towards office parks and entertainment zones.

So that that exodus of what what these downtowns experienced during the pandemic and then what came in afterwards.

Right.

Were people who didn't necessarily want to go into the businesses that they wanted to hang out in the streets and not have to go through security when they go into those clubs.

And that's when we were seeing a spike in crime downtown, which is why they have tweaked everything.

That's why we have the moratorium on new bars.

That's why we they have an outdoor speaker ordinance where you can't if you have an outdoor cafe, you have to point your speakers inside.

So you're not, you know, contributing to this outdoor party atmosphere.

And there was also a big spike in gang violence that we had downtown.

And if you looked at most of those shooting incidents in our downtown, most of them had to do with gangs who were allied with different club promoters and different club nights, and then who has control of what street corner.

And yeah, there was a massive spike in gang violence during the pandemic and I think that's there is a little bit of a stretch for me-- >>To connect-- >>To connect the two, to connect the two.

>>Well, for those of us that have lived in Orlando a long time, it's really been interesting to watch the changes that have taken place in downtown.

There's been a few and maybe some more to come while we talk about the city.

We're also watching developments, by the way, surrounding an investigation of Commissioner Regina Hill into allegations of elder exploitation.

First reported by WFTV, Channel 9.

We'll keep an eye on that story with the hearing set to take place on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, we want to hear from you on any of the issues we're discussing on the program.

You can find us on social media we're at WUCFTV, on Facebook, X and also on Instagram.

Well, let's stay with developmental issues.

The city of Orlando is moving ahead with a plan to annex a large swath of Orange County, which will form part of an enormous project called Sun Bridge by developer Tavistock.

Commissioners have agreed to press ahead with plans to swallow more than 6000 acres near Lake Nona.

They'll vote to approve the move next month.

An expected second phase would later bring the total amount of land annexed to Orlando to nearly 12,000 acres.

Sun Bridge project spans Orange and Osceola counties on Mormon Church owned land.

Orange County says it was not properly notified of the annexation plans and is calling for a delay.

Well, let's hear from Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and then Assistant Orange County attorney Andrew.

Mai.

>>It's development that's going to happen on the border of the city of Orlando.

And if it's going to be developed in that fashion, it should be in the city of Orlando.

We are having unprecedented growth of a thousand people moving to central Florida every week.

As a city, we know that we must plan for meeting the demands of housing and civic and infrastructure developments.

We must ensure smart development that meets our community's needs while driving inevitable growth away from the rural parts of our state and toward existing urban areas.

>>The county is disappointed that we were not consulted regarding this annexation.

We did not receive the feasibility study of annexation as required by Florida statutes.

The governing body of the city, this council never sent the notification to the Board of County Commissioners as required.

The notification was sent by the Director of the Economic Development to the to to the county comptroller.

We are concerned that this failure invalidates any action this Council may take related to this item.

>>Andrew Mai there on behalf of the county.

Well, Ryan Gillespie, let me start with you on this and help us understand what the mayor was saying there.

I mean, this is taking place near Lake Nona, right, which I think as we were discussing before, was annexed by the city back in 1994.

I believe that area, the planned annexation encompasses another massive Tavistock development.

What is the city's rationale for annexing this parcel now?

>>So I think it's like you said, I think it's important to understand the size of the land that we're talking about here.

It's it's east of Lake Nona.

And Lake Nona, in and of itself is quite far from downtown Orlando.

It's very to the southeast.

So this property is even east of that.

And it basically runs from the southern tip of Alafaya all the way down to the Osceola County line.

And Sun Bridge in itself is a gigantic development that's going to be coming here at some point 27,000 acres.

Most of it's in Osceola.

But the Orange County peace would be entirely brought into the city of Orlando.

And what Mayor Dyer maintains is that because this development, which I think it's fair to compare it to Lake Nona, there could be roughly the same size of when you think of what the city will be bringing in.

>>Similar mixed use, kind of-- >>Yeah, maybe a different focus, but very similar in terms of scope, you know, if it's going to be happening on the borders of the city, he believes that it should just be a part of the city.

He he he told Ryan and I actually after this meeting, something I thought was interesting is he views the growth of cities differently than other people do.

He believes cities should grow outward and the county should not.

And he thinks that's maybe a unique viewpoint in our state.

But but that's generally the way they're approaching this.

>>That is interesting because a lot of the orthodoxy around development has been that we use space within the cities and that they should grow up rather than than out.

Ryan Lynch I mean Mayor Demings says he was kind of left in the dark about about Orlando's plans.

What are the county's primary objections to this on bridge annexation?

>>Yeah, I think as mentioned in the meeting, some county things that were brought up were, you know, distance of emergency services compared to the city and concerns over creating the you said, finger like areas within those type of regions.

Obviously that would be a huge swath of land and there would be tax implications as well depending on who's controlling the land, especially once this is fully developed.

So those are just some of the things that, you know, the counties work on.

And they also are unsure if it's a legal move and they wanted to be able to chat it over with the city to kind of figure out how this might proceed.

>>Brendan, I mean, it's not unusual for the city to annex parts of parts of the county.

If anybody looks at the map, the boundary map of the city of Orlando, it doesn't look particularly straight-- >>It's like a moth-eaten map.

Yeah, kind of.

You know, there's always little holes in it and you always have to double check when we're writing about some of these stories in these developments.

Yeah, but generally it's because maybe sometimes it's easier for that developer to work with the city than it is for the county.

There's tax benefits and it's just easier to connect to the city sewage system or the electric-- >>Infrastructure.

>>Yeah, it's just easier.

I mean you see that a lot in places like the Hourglass District or Curry Ford West and places that were, you know, kind of sleepy suburbs that have now become more inner city neighborhoods as the city grows.

>>The city is expected to pursue a second phase.

Do we have a timeframe on all of this?

>>Yeah, if everything goes to their plan, they would like to have this all wrapped up by mid-May.

So we've got there's another vote scheduled on this first annexation here in about a week.

Or week and a half and then, you know, the next two votes, if everything goes to schedule, should be wrapped up by it something like May 12th.

>>Which is honestly pretty quick.

>>That's very quick.

>>For the size of land that we're talking about for sure.

I think something that's really interesting is the at least the initial annexation of Lake Nona in 1994, which was roughly 12,000 acres.

And when we're all said and done here, if the city's successful, they're going to be annexing in 11,600 acres.

So it's-- >>A lot of space.

>>Right.

So it's very, very similar to what we saw in the nineties.

And the county had its own objections to it then and there was a whole kind of public back and forth.

So it's interesting to see history sort of repeat itself.

>>And we'll we'll see how those discussions between Orlando and the county go over the coming weeks as to how that will affect the time frame.

You can find more information on the development issues affecting our region on our website.

It's all at wucf.org/newsnight.

Well, finally tonight, developments in our region's transit infrastructure.

Cocoa recently took a step closer to getting a Brightline rail station when the city council voted to spend $5 million on the project.

Bightline began its long awaited service between Miami and Orlando Airport last year.

The company says passenger numbers are strong, but communities along the route on the Treasure Coast and Brevard County so far have no way to access the services that race through.

Brightline announced this month it would open a station in Stuart.

And now, in the wake of the infusion of money from Cocoa, it says, "Brightline is ready to begin the formal process with Space Coast stakeholders to fulfill our vision for a Brevard County station."

Brightline President Patrick Goddard talked with me about the prospect of a Brevard station last year.

>>There's been an ongoing dialog with Brevard County about a station in that location somewhere.

We think it makes a lot of sense.

You've got this emerging Space Coast happening there.

You've got Port Canaveral, as you correctly pointed out.

There's a there's a resort community there that's also growing.

There's a residential community there that's growing.

So we think it probably makes an awful lot of sense to have a station out there.

>>Brightline says the Space Coast Transportation Planning Organization, Brevard County, Cocoa and others identify potential federal, state and local resources for station construction and design.

All right.

The future plans for Brightline.

Ryan Lynch, let me start with you on this one.

Where is the station likely to be?

Do we know and what's the process now?

Do we have a sort of a timeframe on how long it's going to be?

>>Yeah.

So in terms of the location it will be around the 528 and where U.S. Highway one meet that it's referred to as the cocoa curve.

We don't have an exact layout of how it'll look.

There's currently a planning process to kind of imagine what that looks like, both Brightline and the city own land out that way.

In terms of the timeframe on that, it's kind of we don't know.

I would say a lot of the next steps are in terms of fundraising.

The local partners, including the city, some potential county funding and Brightline itself are looking to kind of fund that.

We don't really have a cost estimate for what that will look like when the Stuart station launch.

They had cost estimates, they had how big the station will be, and we don't really have that yet, but that's being developed very early stage.

The Coca curve of course, is where that long strait stretch to Orlando dip south and the trains have to slow down a bit.

I mean, beyond cocoa, I mean, this is obviously going to be important news for Cape Canaveral for the port.

Do we get any sense about the potential economic impact a Brevard station might have?

>>Yeah, I think from a lot of the resident interviews we've kind of seen coming out of that area, there's a lot of interest in bringing folks into that area from a tourism side.

And I know you mentioned the port as well.

That would be a huge connection is something that Bright Line has talked about in the past, having that connectivity with the port and being able to take customers, whether they're from Orlando or from the South Florida side and be able to go to Port Canaveral.

>>One of the issues, Brendan, is that the Brightline station in Miami is downtown and Orlando.

It's not downtown, right?

You've got to get from downtown to the airport to catch the train.

There is the talk of the sunshine corridor and how to to raise money for that.

That would connect SunRail up.

Do you get a feeling from those downtown communities that there is a real appetite for a rail connection to take passengers to the Brightline from downtown?

>>I get the feeling from downtown communities, yes, I know we've all heard the hullabaloo that was raised in Hunter's Creek that maybe they didn't want it passing through for whatever reason.

I thought that was kind of crazy.

But yeah, the sense is, sure, it sounds fun.

It's pie in the sky.

We'll see if it happens.

But there is an apprehension and that's maybe overpowering that excitement of what will it cost and what will it cost taxpayers?

You know, it's we're now faced with this unknown price tag of of when the cities take over the governance of SunRail.

Right.

Like, we're going to be paid for that FDOT is not going to be paying that forever.

And what does that look like and what does it look like then when we're adding to it to connect it to the airport?

Are we ready to pay that cost?

>>And we we've we've talked about the cost and the efforts to raise money.

Mayor Demings' penny sales tax proposal.

City leaders Ryan Gillespie have pushed hard for this connection.

>>Yeah, it's I think you could probably make a pretty strong case that, that the Sunshine corridor is Buddy Dyer's top priority in his final term.

And if it's not it's on the very short list of things that are.

But like I said, it's a very expensive proposition to go 11 miles to the airport.

We're talking about $2 billion-- >>Through a dense urban area.

>>Right.

We're talking about $2 billion.

And to get these rail lines, you know, these lanes are controlled by a lot of different entities.

So there's some complexities there.

Mayor says he would like to break ground by the time he's done as mayor.

We will see if that happens.

Like you said, the Mayor Demings, talking about trying to make another run at that sales tax, probably would have something to say about that as well.

>>And certainly lots of interesting questions to be asked about the role of the federal and state governments in financing what's likely to be a very expensive project.

Meanwhile, be sure to visit us online to see this or any previous episode of NewsNight.

Visit us at wucf.org/newsnight along the bottom of your screen.

That is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Brendan O'Connor.

Ryan Gillespie.

Ryan Lynch, thank you so much for coming in, guys.

Really appreciate your time.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

In the meantime, for all of us here at NewsNight take care and have a great week.