leondecollao

Locals are against everything in Daytona. I understand where they are coming from but Daytona sorely needs investment dollars to come in and this would be the first hotel developed south of international speedway in 35 years. Hard to make the case that building is out of control or that one more restaurant in a beachside that desperately needs it is gonna overwhelm traffic, etc.

I think people are still vastly underestimating the big deal this could be…..I was at MCO two days ago and all American Airlines flights were delayed or cancelled, including two direct flights to Miami. People were literally sitting at the airport for HOURS waiting for a flight after security for a trip that is just a 3.5 hour drive. All of them appeared to be well to do foreign tourists that were flying for the “convenience”. There’s a market for this rail.

Would be awesome but hard to see us getting international hub status with anyone before Miami does. Perhaps British airlines considering the number of Brits visiting Orlando regularly but hard to see Asian flights here imo.

Avelo is also doing service out of Melbourne. I guess they are really betting on Florida which I completely understand but get the nagging feeling they are expanding too fast.

I too am very impressed with Brightline. It’s everything we wish sunrail would be - free shuttles to sporting events, late night service, weekend service, etc. Pleasantly surprised to see a train project managed and planned so well.

British folks complaining about our airports is hilarious. I just flew into and out of Manchester England and that airport makes me never want to travel again.

Another vantage point of the project from the Gallery parking garage.

It is an interesting question, especially considering they got rid of the fourth lane and street parking on the right side of the road for an extra wide bike lane. That bike lane (or I guess they call it a multi-modal transportation lane) might be my favorite transportation improvement in town. That couple blocks corridor feels fresh, green, urban even.

Wild to me how much this view has changed in the past 10 years.

I confirmed Orlando is a small town? Huh? It’s a verifiable fact that we are a large city and growing faster than any other large city in the whole country. I don’t get the small town talk at all. The reason we don’t have any corporate presence to speak of is because we lack history. We literally grew from a cow town to 2.6m in 50 years. It’s the same reason Florida only has 19 Fortune 500 companies. It’s easy to forget but this whole state was swamp backwater until relatively recently. As one example, we didn’t even have a single major league team in any sport until the 60s with the dolphins and we didn’t have a single MLB team until 1993. yeah, a city like Pittsburgh (just one random examples but there’s a lot similar examples) might have more corporate presence but it’s not about city limits, it’s because companies like Mellon, PPG, PNC, Kraft all grew up with the city over the last two hundred years. In order for us to to have those type of local corporates, we’ll need to wait another 100 years or convince some to move here. Last point I’ll make - I LOVE how quaint our downtown has managed to stay. I don’t ever want to see our downtown turn into the hell hole that is Houston, for one example.

So strange to see people on this thread talking about Orlando being a small town or about the population within city limits as if that matters at all. Orlando is the 22nd largest MSA per the latest census data (with a population of 2.6m) and is growing faster than any of the 21 MSA’s above it. We will be a top twenty city very soon. Orlando is not a small town guys. We don’t have any skyscrapers because there is zero reason to build any. I may be wrong but I believe Darden is the only Fortune 500 company in the city. Heck, the whole state of Florida only has 19 Fortune 500 companies last I checked. Without a large influx of corporate money into this town, any major office space builds would shock me.

I kinda can’t believe how nice the food hall at the Yard is.....WHOAAAAA! https://www.instagram.com/p/CWZQmcVMMoK/?utm_medium=copy_link Grand opening tomorrow it seems.

Plus some much needed parking for the area.

Banners are being put up right now for what looks like a six or so story building called “upshot medical center”. Was not able to grab a pic driving by.....

I actually think we’d agree on a lot over a beer. I agree Orlando is a botched mess of sprawl but I save that type of hate for places like Horizons West while hoping Lake Nona can turn out to be something more.