Editor

Osceola County commissioners Monday narrowed down to three the property offers to be pursued on which to build an amateur sports complex using tourist development taxes, with further review of the proposals planned for July 12.

County officials are looking for property on which to build a facility to be used for United States Specialty Sports Association competition. The offers on the shortlist have hugely different price tags, going from a $4 million plan in Harmony to $19.5 million for property off West U.S. Highway 192, on the site of the former Splendid China theme park.

Tourist tax revenue would be used to both obtain the property and develop a sports complex, which would be built to association standards and managed by the association but owned by the county. The facility, as proposed, would have 17 multi-use playing fields as well as a building for indoor sports and the appropriate parking. Association officials have said a new facility is needed to schedule more sports events that would generate additional overnight stays in Osceola County.

The cost to build the sports complex itself, association officials said earlier, could run anywhere from $29 million to $42 million, depending on a final design.

County staff will now look more closely at the three shortlisted proposals to determine their feasibility in light of what tourist development taxes are available.

The shortlist

The top three offers to be considered by commissioners are:

• Birchwood Acres, the developer of the community of Harmony, offered to provide up to 300 acres in Harmony for free. However, the county would have to pay an estimated $4 million to prepare the site for construction. Harmony officials said the project would jump-start an adjacent 100,000-square-foot commercial development, which could include a hotel. Starwood Capital Group, the parent corporation of Birchwood Acres, would back Birchwood Acres’ participation in the project.

• The Falcone Group, of Boca Raton, offered approximately 165 acres in the Rolling Oaks development, which is bordered by West U.S. Highway 192, Formosa Gardens Boulevard and State Road 429, at a price ranging from $16.5 million to $19.5 million, depending on which complex layout and location the county would pursue.

• Avatar Properties offered 161 acres, part of the property it owns across East U.S. Highway 192 from Osceola Heritage Park, at a cost of $18,998,000. This site was ranked highest by review committees.

In weighing the offers, commissioners considered location, cost and the payback on investment in terms of increased overnight lodging in the county.

Before the presentations by the various land interests, Interim County Manager Don Fisher reminded commissioners that tourist development taxes are a “limited resource.”

"There isn’t as much funding available as you might think,” Fisher said. “Very few proposals would not impact what you want to do with other, smaller projects.”

Commissioner Ken Smith, who favored the Avatar Properties, Falcone Group and Harmony offers, said the commission needs to closely look at what funding is available and that he “wants to keep the military museum (proposed to replace the current Veterans Tribute and Museum now in Osceola Square Mall) on the table.”

"Harmony may open up more opportunities for us,” Smith said, referring to the availability of funding for other projects if land is donated for a sports complex.

Commission Chairman Fred Hawkins Jr. said no other proposal other than the Harmony offer "fits into the budget.” Hawkins also favored at least continuing to look at the Avatar Properties site, since it would complement what Osceola Heritage Park has to offer.

Commissioner Brandon Arrington, like Smith, favored the three offers on the shortlist. However, he said he was concerned that Harmony was too far away from the main tourist corridor.

Commissioner John Quiñones said location does matter when it comes to generating overnight stays and that he favors the Avatar Properties and the Harmony proposals as well as an offer by the Maharishi Global Development Fund for 150 acres in the 5500 block of West U.S. Highway 192 close to Celebration for $23 million.

Quiñones, however, said the Maharishi site, while in the heart of the tourist corridor, is too pricey but that perhaps the cost could be negotiated downward.

Commissioner Michael Harford said he also favored the Falcone Group and Harmony offers as well as the Maharishi site because of its proximity to lodging businesses along West U.S. Highway 192.

Other sites

Other sites offered at the workshop were:

• Osceola Development Trust offered 589 acres for $28 million off State Road 535 adjacent to the mothballed Legacy resort site. This proposal would involve the county buying 169 acres for a sports complex at a cost of $16 million, with the other 420 acres being sold to the Florida Trust for Public Land for $12 million. The trust would then sell the 420 acres to the state, the county, the city of Kissimmee or to the South Florida Water Management District – or a combination of entities – to add to the Shingle Creek Greenway and to Shingle Creek Regional Park. According to information presented at the workshop, the trust currently has an option to buy the site.

• Townsend & Townsend, of Kissimmee, offered 120 acres off Poinciana Boulevard, for approximately $10.4 million. The site is adjacent to the proposed SunRail station.

Two other proposals

Commissioners also heard two other proposals they want to explore separately from the sports association project:

• An event and marketing program offered by Walt Disney World through ESPN Wide World of Sports that would involve promoting the county on ESPN property and Internet sites as the “amateur sports capital of the world” as well as bring basketball events to the Silver Spurs Arena and the Exhibition building in Osceola Heritage Park.

• Rida Associates, owner of the Omni Hotel at ChampionsGate along Interstate 4, proposed adding the sports complex at ChampionsGate at no additional cost to an existing $120 million agreement between it, the county and the Gaylord Palms resort for expanded convention/conference facilities and additional hotel rooms at the two resorts. The sports complex would be in Polk County.

Rida Associates officials said the sports complex project would jump-start the convention center project, which was approved in 2008 but has been inactive because of the recession. In addition, Rida Associates would add 250 more hotel rooms into the agreement, which earmarks $80 million of tourist development taxes for Gaylord Palms and $40 million for ChampionsGate.

Neither the Carroll Street Properties/Regional Development Group (Bronson property) nor the Gramercy Farms/KB Home group made presentations at the workshop.