GlobeSt.com UPDATE: Cost-Cutting County Says No to Annex

ORLANDO-Number-crunching Orange County commissioners probably won’t receive Christmas cards this year from Orlando Magic owner Richard DeVos or Convention Center Director Tom Ackert. In back-to-back votes, the commissioners rejected Ackert’s request for a $40-million, 260,000-sf annex to the $750 million, three million-sf addition scheduled for completion in 2003 at the existing four million-sf (gross) Orange County Convention Center.

Commissioners also told DeVos they probably could spare a maximum $79 million in tourist tax revenue over the next four years as a contribution to a proposed $250-million basketball court. That promptly killed the new arena idea, as GlobeSt.com reported June 10.

DeVos, the billionaire co-founder of Ada, MI-based Amway Corp., wanted the county to kick in $121.5 million. But with tourist tax collections from tourists and travelers declining for March, April and May, the county’s till is thinning out for commercial real estate projects.