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World Expo Developer Takes Another Run at Financially-Challenged Convention Center Venture

ORLANDO-Robert Miller's new strategy would end a two-year pending lawsuit by the State Attorney's office over funding squabbles and allow Osceola County to create a special taxing district to float bonds that would pay for the $1.1 billion project.

By Alex Finkelstein | Updated on December 19, 2000

ORLANDO-Robert Miller never takes no for an answer. He always returns with another idea. Now Osceola County, the poor cousin of Orange County where Orlando is located, is considering new funding strategy proposed by the developer for his $1.1 billion World Expo mixed-use project comprising one million sf of commercial/retail/restaurant, a 2,000-room Hyatt hotel and a 41,000-sf convention center.

It’s the convention center part of the project that keeps Osceola County commissioners focused on Miller and his so-far mysterious unnamed new investor group. Osceola County knows it will never be able to compete with the four-million-sf Orange County Convention Center that is adding another 1.1 million sf this year. But Osceola will be satisfied if it can at least pick up the crumbs of Orange County’s gargantuan convention business to pay the bills and still have a little left over for future development.

The convention center site is between US 192 and Osceola Parkway, eight miles from the 30,000-acre Walt Disney World empire.

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