Winter Park Playhouse, Rollins come out as winners in TDT recommendations

They are among 11 arts and culture projects that the Tourist Development Tax board is asking the County Commission to fund

Oct. 3, 2024

By Beth Kassab

The Winter Park Playhouse and the Rollins Art Museum are on track to receive their full request for dollars from a portion of Tourist Development Tax money set aside for arts and cultural projects over the next five years.

The playhouse project, through a partnership with the city of Winter Park to purchase and renovate its current building after nearly losing its lease, will receive $8 million between now and 2028 if the recommendations from the Tourist Development Tax Advisory Council are approved by the Orange County Commission later this month.

The Rollins Art Museum, which made a bid to take over the old Winter Park Library but was pushed aside for the Blue Bamboo Center for the Arts, will receive $10 million between 2026 and 2028, according to the recommendations.

The college announced this week that museum leader Ena Heller is leaving to take a position as the next director of the Boca Raton Museum of Art, but President Grant Cornwell told the Voice in a statement that the vision for a new museum will continue with a broad base of support.

“It has been an honor to work alongside Ena, whose visionary leadership has transformed the Rollins Museum of Art into an integral part of the College’s mission,” Cornwell said. “I am deeply grateful for her contributions and creativity and for ensuring the museum’s successful standing as we build upon the foundation she is leaving. The museum has strong support and a vital group of members, donors, partners, and patrons supporting it, and we are excited about this next stage as we come to closure on our future museum.”

The County Commission will take up the funding requests for final approval on Oct. 29.

Earlier this year, local arts groups were invited to apply for grants from $75 million of tourist tax money set aside over the next five years for local arts and cultural projects. The tax on hotel rooms brought in a record $359 million last year in Orange County, a significant recovery from the pandemic years, which saw collections drop to about half that amount.

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Winter Park Playhouse

The bulk of the hotel tax goes toward paying off the construction costs and operating the Orange County Convention Center, other large venues and Visit Orlando, the publicly-supported organization that markets Orlando as a destination.

The convention center’s operating expenses exceed its revenue so far this year by $12.6 million, according to the comptroller’s report at the Sept. 27 meeting. The subsidy paid by the county out of tourist tax dollars to keep the convention center operating in the black is tracking higher this year than the previous two years, the report showed.

In all, 14 groups originally applied for the arts money with requests totalling $126 million.

Three groups were deemed ineligible for the funds, leaving 11 groups with requests totalling $94.2 million — nearly $20 million more than the allotted $75 million budget for the projects.

A committee led by former Orange County Comptroller Martha Haynie met to rank the projects and recommend how much each would receive.

The Tourist Tax Council, which includes Orange Mayor Jerry Demings, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Eatonville Mayor Angie Gardner, four hotel owners or industry representatives who must remit the tax and two others, accepted those recommendations at its meeting last week.

Haynie urged the board to reconsider the criteria for future local arts projects to put less emphasis on driving overnight hotel stays — a move that she said could help demonstrate how the tax is used to benefit local residents vs. the tourism industry.

“I think when the Board of County Commissioners can demonstrate the interest and the support of local cultural organizations it supports the position county has always taken,” to reserve the bulk of the tax for industry projects amid pressure to expand how the tax is used, Haynie said. She noted that expanding uses of the tax “in the long run probably would not serve the county as well as it has been served today.”

Intensified calls to use some of the hotel tax revenue on local projects such as roads or train lines are playing out in three county commission races on next month’s ballot. That is especially the case in District 5, which represents Winter Park, where former Mayor Steve Leary is receiving financial contributions from the tourism industry against Kelly Semrad, a UCF professor who studies tourism economies, and is calling for the tax to more substantially benefit people who live in Orange County.

Demings focused his comments on the “financial readiness” of some of the organizations who requested money.

“We have had some challenges like the Pulse Museum and others when they don’t execute the fundraising to cover the gap to do the project and then the project gets extended and the price escalates and then they come back and request additional money,” Demings said, though he said he was pleased to see geographic diversity in the list which touched on Winter Park, Winter Garden and Apopka. “The list looks pretty good, but I still remain somewhat concerned about the ability of these organizations to cover the gap … so we’ll see where this ends up.”

Haynie’s committee recommended all but three organizations receive the amount of funding they requested. The recommendations to be considered by the County Commission later this month are:

• City of Apopka: $13.1 million to construct and improve softball fields, the amphitheater and other facilities. Estimated total cost of the project is $13.3 million.
• 4R Foundation: $12 million for a community events center plus and outdoor stage and lawn at 4Roots Campus, which also includes a farm and classroom space in Orlando’s Packing District neighborhood. Estimated total cost of the project is $65 million.
• Orlando Science Center: $13.9 million enlarge and remodel the outdoor terrace and event venue. Estimated total cost of the project is $14.1 million.
• Rollins College: $10 million to construct a new art museum for new art museum. Estimated total project cost is $30.6 million.
• Orlando Philharmonic Plaza Foundation: $2.1 million to improve the auditorium, including a patron’s room. Estimated total project cost is $3.1 million.
• Winter Garden Art Association: $4 million for a new museum next to the current space. Estimated total cost of the project is $7 million.
• Orlando Family Stage: $5.8 million to remodel and operate the auditorium. Estimated total project cost is $7.6 million.
• City of Winter Park : $8 million to acquire, enlarge and remodel the Winter Park Playhouse. Estimated cost of the total project is $10 million.
• Friends of the Mennello: $2 million (request was $13 million) to enlarge and improve the folk art museum. Estimated total cost is $30 million.
• Orlando Museum of Art: $2 million (request was $7.2 million) to repair the roof and HVAC system. Total cost of the project is estimated at $7.5 million.
• PAST/Wells’ Built Museum: $2 million (request was $5 million) to acquire the property and construct and improve the museum and auditorium. Estimated total cost is $10 million.

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