Mayor Defends Big Pritzker Deal; Lashes Out at Newspaper

ORLANDO-After years of coziness, Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood and the city’s only daily newspaper, the Orlando Sentinel, are going their separate ways. They won’t be sending Christmas cards to each other this year.

Hood is upset over a three-part series of articles the Sentinel ran Nov. 4-6, detailing what it describes as a sweetheart land acquisition deal between the city and Chicago-based Pritzker Realty Group. Penny Pritzker heads Pritzker Realty which is owned by one of the richest families in the United States.

A partnership controlled by the Pritzkers paid $7.6 million or $6,953 per acre (16 cents per sf) in 1999 for the 1,093-acre former Orlando Naval Training Center site which almost abuts Winter Park, one of the most affluent suburbs in Central Florida.