City Dreams of New Downtown Mini Convention Center

ORLANDO-Eager to craft a new Downtown business image, elected city officials are studying a proposed landscape by San Francisco-based EDAW Inc. that would comprise a 140,000-sf Expo Center for small regional conventions; a 300-room hotel; a 2,147-space parking garage addition; and a public recreation center, all near the existing TD Waterhouse Centre.

The only element missing from the plan is funding. City and EDAW officials couldn’t be reached at GlobeSt.com’s publcation deadline to learn an estimated cost of the enterprise.

But private local land planners, not associated with the EDAW proposal, tell GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity the undertaking couldn’t be done today or even in the next five years for less than $100 million.