Orlando-Downtown Vacation Help

[DailyJournalist]

What does downtown Orlando need? - Orlando Business Journal:

[HPage]

Why do I get the feeling that Silence Dogood or some other Orlando hater is the OP?

[bdpop]

They should turn downtown into a big world class mall-like shopping area like the 34th Street/Herald Square area in NYC.

[Crane's Rooster]

Admittedly our Downtown is lacking some amenities or diversity thereof but it is by no means worthless. I'd much rather vacation in DT Orlando than say DT Jax, Tampa or Fort Laudy (no offense to the other places they have their merits too). Point I'm making is DT has plenty to offer to a vacationer, likely not enough to support the entire vacation on it's own, but enough that it would be a great home base for a Central Florida Vacation, particularly if your young. If I was a young single person or even young married with no kids, and planning to visit Orlando, even for the theme parks, I would rather stay downtown and have easy access to the nightlife than stay out in the tourist heavy southside which basically caters only to families.

[Wilshire81182]

Originally Posted by Crane's Rooster

Admittedly our Downtown is lacking some amenities or diversity thereof but it is by no means worthless. I'd much rather vacation in DT Orlando than say DT Jax, Tampa or Fort Laudy (no offense to the other places they have their merits too). Point I'm making is DT has plenty to offer to a vacationer, likely not enough to support the entire vacation on it's own, but enough that it would be a great home base for a Central Florida Vacation, particularly if your young. If I was a young single person or even young married with no kids, and planning to visit Orlando, even for the theme parks, I would rather stay downtown and have easy access to the nightlife than stay out in the tourist heavy southside which basically caters only to families.

I agree with everything you said. I like our downtown just fine and know that over time it will get even better. Downtown Orlando will probably never be worldclass though because there is too much competition all over the metro area.

[DailyJournalist]

Originally Posted by Wilshire81182

I agree with everything you said. I like our downtown just fine and know that over time it will get even better. Downtown Orlando will probably never be worldclass though because there is too much competition all over the metro area.

I really don't think its the competition considering many other major cities have surrounding places that have downtowns and it does not affect the vitality of the city center. I think what happened is that the politicians have never wanted to make downtown Orlando a thriving place and have wanted to make it into another Disney type resort with expensive condos and no eye on bringing corporations and other things that would make it a true city center. This is not only isolated to Orlando, other downtowns in Florida face the same issues (Tampa, Jacksonville, for example). Until these cities have true downtowns they will never be more than an overgrown suburb.