{"id":940278,"date":"2026-07-17T03:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T03:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/940278\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T03:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T03:41:12","slug":"orange-county-to-weigh-tourist-tax-request-for-mlb-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/940278\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County to weigh tourist tax request for MLB stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 In the coming months, Orange County leaders will decide what to do with the millions of dollars in Tourist Development Tax (TDT) money they\u2019ve taken in.<\/p>\n

The county’s Tourist Development Tax Citizen Advisory Task Force\u00a0will hold its first meeting next week,<\/a> on the road to ultimately making recommendations on project applications.<\/p>\n

One of those applications that will be reviewed was submitted by the Orlando Dreamers<\/a>, the group trying to bring Major League Baseball to Orlando.<\/p>\n

Orange County Commissioners say they\u2019re looking forward to hearing next week\u2019s discussion of those applications.<\/p>\n

As far as the Orlando Dreamers go, Commissioner Mayra Uribe says with all this talk about funding, she wants to make sure it goes to the right place.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost a billion dollars is a lot of money, and it would literally restrict us from doing anything else in this town for probably the next decade,\u201d Commissioner Uribe said.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Uribe says her mindset is to think cautiously about how the county can leverage those dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to remember, those TDT dollars are created by the workforce that works in that industry. We just want to make sure that it\u2019s a give and take kind of relationship,\u201d Uribe said.<\/p>\n

That relationship is one Andrew Herdliska, chief marketing officer for the Orlando Dreamers, wants to see through.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal, whether it\u2019s through expansion or relocation, is to bring a Major League Baseball team to Orlando,\u201d Herdliska said.<\/p>\n

This week, the Orlando Dreamers announced its economic impact data<\/a> from JLL, an independent consulting firm.<\/p>\n

Their research claims that bringing Major League Baseball to Orlando would bring in excess of 38,000 jobs during the construction phase, more than 52,000 permanent jobs, an economic impact over 30 years of more than $72 billion, and an average of an additional $32 million of annual TDT revenues.<\/p>\n

\u201cFunding approval for the stadium would be a signal to Major League Baseball that Orlando is ready to bring a team here,\u201d Herdliska said.<\/p>\n

Herdliska acknowledges that the price tag is high and believes getting funding will benefit all parties involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a part of the process to be competitive with other expansion cities. It\u2019s less than what the Rays are asking for in Tampa, so we\u2019ve kind of used a comparative model looking at recent stadium requests and builds as what would be a rational number to ask for from the county,\u201d Herdliska said.<\/p>\n

Commissioners say they\u2019re looking forward to next week\u2019s discussions.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s play some baseball,\u201d Commissioner Michael Scott said. \u201cI\u2019m absolutely an advocate of the Dreamers. But I also have to be able to counterbalance what they need versus the public good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orange County\u2019s Tourist Development Tax Citizen Advisory Task Force meeting is set for 9 a.m. on Tuesday, July 21.<\/p>\n

The Dreamers have advanced stadium design and surrounding development plans over recent months.<\/p>\n

The proposed location they\u2019re looking at is a 35-and-a-half acre site north of Aquatica.<\/p>\n

The rest of the funding for the project will come through private money, Dreamers officials say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 In the coming months, Orange County leaders will decide what to do with the millions…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":940279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[41034,13565,59713,30320,30319,64,378648,8629,1266,50,1036,6063,80,134330,62,1458,100918,67,132,68,5284],"class_list":["post-940278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-local-business","tag-app-professional-sports","tag-app-sports","tag-business","tag-devin-martin","tag-local-politics","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-politics","tag-professional-baseball","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-topic-latest-local-business-stories","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-vod"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}