Church Street Station Dev. Wins $3M Package

ORLANDO-In one of the sweetest deals ever crafted by Orlando for a private developer, entrepreneur Louis J. Pearlman has won a $3 million economic incentives package from the city and state to redevelop the foundering 28-year-old, eight-building, 260,000-sf Church Street Station complex Downtown.

Desperate to reignite the magnetism that once enveloped the 7.3-acre entertainment compound, elected city officials voted 6-1 to give the creator of internationally-acclaimed boy bands, $1.5 million in loans. The money will be used to renovate the 100-year-old, 136,000-sf, three-story vacant Church Street Exchange building where Pearlman will move his 500-person global musical headquarters staff by December from its existing International Drive site.

On the $1.5 million loan, the former Flushing Queens, NY-native has 14 years to repay the money and will pay only the interest on the loan for the first four years. Pearlman is also getting 12 years of tax rebates with an estimated annual value of $60,000, starting in 2005 and based on a percentage of any increase in the property’s assessed value resulting from his improvements.