Whipp

i'm with bulldogger on this one. cloudship, while your motives, i'm sure are golden, i think your perspective is off. i don't feel you have enough experience living there to get a grasp on what the people of orlando consider to be their city. the downtown, has always been a vibrant part of orlando life. sure, the night life has ebbed and flowed, but it has never just been a "bunch of taller buildings". the city you describe sounds like LA. and while orlando certainly has started to become sort of a "baby LA" due to the sprawl, i think its downtown has always maintained an important role as the center of town. perhaps the rest of the world thinks orlando's central figure is the attractions area, and thats just not true. if cambridge is not boston then, walt disney world is not orlando. nor is dr. phillips, nor is winter park. etc. and to go back to the original topic. having an arena just on the other side of I-4 closer to church street is JUST what orlando needs to finally bridge the two sides of downtown, especially if it doens't have a huge parking moat. from what you wrote in some of your earlier posts, IMHO it doesn't sound like you've even visited orlando at all, but perhaps only viewed it on google earth or something. not dissing you, just telling you how its coming across. i suggest an extended visit, a rental car and perhaps a hotel stay at the grand bohemian to show you how downtown actually is a vibrant central figure of orlando. perhaps in june or july when the plaza theater is open.

or better yet, have the creative artist themselves design the creative village on their little laptops.

ok, you know what? its this kind of mindset that keeps orlando at bay when it comes to eventually becoming a real city, IMHO. if you go to a major city, one that has established sports facilities, people park and walk to the venue. thats just standard. and because of this, all of the area around the facility starts booming due to all the foot traffic. sports bars, restaurants, shops, cafe's, etc. what do they want, a friggin series of parking lots named after 7 dwarves for God's sake??? ...like walking three blocks from orange ave would be SOOOO difficult!!? all of the sports venues that come to mind that have huge parking moats surrounding them were all built in an era when veunes were being built away from the city centers. now the venues are returning to where the action is. one of the worst things about the existing orlando arena is the huge sea of parking surrounding it. it makes it feel so far from urban to me. i just don't get their argument. talk about "WHINE and cheese"

holy double posts batman!

i think bic just closed this thread. wow!!

Who these grown people wearing big yellow shirts are ('YES TO WAL-MART'), I would love to know. They didn't have the guts to stand up and speak.

if they are worried now about funding, why not scale back and take the citrus bowl renovation off the list. it seems completely pointless to me anyway. the other too are no brainers, but why renovate the citrus bowl?? as someone mentioned earlier, it is used 2 days out of the year now, minus small community events. plus i always get annoyed when the lump it in with downtown. its about as downtown as pine hills is!

my sister LOVES this place. coincidentally she also grew up in orlando with me and now lives out here in LA as well. i'm more of a NY style pizza guy, but didn't hate it. their deserts are pretty fantastic. their beer didn't necessarily stand out, but it wasn't piss water either. overall, i'd recommend it. especially if you're tired of Uno's.

perhaps even a redesign down the road to make better acoustics, sightlines and mechanics. big "perhaps", but we can always remain hopeful. i kinda have sentimental ties to the place. it was the first place i had ever heard a live symphony when i was like 8 years old. that was back in the days of the orange, yellow and fuscia interior looking like some lost set of a buck rogers episode.

michiginagain?

my apologies for my part, jfw. and for the record, i grad from fsu in 93. and yes we are 5-5 and yes we will lose to UF in two weeks and yes i'm throwing stones and i LOVE it! after all that all we noles have left to do now back to rosie, barbara, joye and "the right wing chick" on "the VUE"

no offense at all, go gators, i'm sure you are a great person, but...

oh ok, thats good to know. i'll be sure and tell them to go ahead and schedule western carolina. and btw, i ain't a USC fan, just so ya know

hehe don't worry. they'll more than likely take it down when the gators are passed up for the BCS title game

any body got any pics from the east looking westward at downtown?

hell, i'm rubbernecking on I-4 and i'm in all the way out LA!