Orlando or Tampa compared to Atlanta

[drive carephilly]

Originally Posted by _Uncommon_

Clearwater has a CBD? That’s news to me. I know there are a couple buildings and the Scientology church but I was always under the impression that the only major CBDs were Tampa and St. Pete.

And yeah, St. Pete’s downtown is definitely more robust than Tampa’s. Tampa is definitely catching up though, and will be a force in the middle part of this decade. As regards Orlando’s downtown, I think I-Drive, Citywalk, and Disney Springs take away from Orlando as well. Back in the 90s, lots of tourists would go party in downtown Orlando after hitting the parks. Church Street was POPPIN. Then Disney and Universal leveraged their locales and that pulled thousands of guests each night away from downtown. It’s still a great place to party or hit up a bar and sure, it’s nice to be away from tourists, but it has hurt downtown business and energy.

100% - I don't know if you've taken that new ramp from 417 West to I-4 West (but really, south) but if you're ever stuck in traffic on it you get a really good view of the skyline of I-Drive. It's massive. It's like a whole other city down there. I'm not mad that it's separate and far from where I live but you're right - a lot of locals spend weekends down there too.

There's also something of a suburban office corridor along I-4 from Maitland up to Lake Mary. UCF has its cluster too. Not that Charlotte doesn't have something similar but there are definitely other clusters of activity around Orlando siphoning off the buzz from downtown. It also doesn't help that I-4 was rammed right through the middle of downtown . . . and then 417 walled it off on the southern edge. JYP would have been a much better route for I-4. Oh well.

[logybogy]

The biggest difference is in the job market. Atlanta has so much more going on in the way of corporate headquarters and a diverse job market. It's not predominantly low wage industries like retial and tourism like Florida.

The population demographics are also very different. Orlando and Tampa are much more hispanic and Atlanta has a much larger black population.

[_Uncommon_]

Originally Posted by drive carephilly

100% - I don't know if you've taken that new ramp from 417 West to I-4 West (but really, south) but if you're ever stuck in traffic on it you get a really good view of the skyline of I-Drive. It's massive. It's like a whole other city down there. I'm not mad that it's separate and far from where I live but you're right - a lot of locals spend weekends down there too.

There's also something of a suburban office corridor along I-4 from Maitland up to Lake Mary. UCF has its cluster too. Not that Charlotte doesn't have something similar but there are definitely other clusters of activity around Orlando siphoning off the buzz from downtown. It also doesn't help that I-4 was rammed right through the middle of downtown . . . and then 417 walled it off on the southern edge. JYP would have been a much better route for I-4. Oh well.

I’m assuming you mean 408 west to I-4 west? Iirc 417 is north and south only. If so, then yes, I traveled the new 408 ramp a few months ago. I think it had just opened and I saw the I-Drive skyline. It was pretty amazing to see. I think it’ll continue to grow when the Polercoaster, Gyro Drop, and Slingshot are complete. It would be nice if it were in downtown, like Nashville’s tourism district is right in the heart of its CBD, but oh well.

Speaking of other areas siphoning away from downtown, Lake Nona is building a little city with a mini skyline as well. Again, if Orlando were more cohesive and compact, I think the city would be so much more vibrant. But everything is so fractured and discrete. I wish the city was more unified.

[drive carephilly]

Originally Posted by _Uncommon_

I’m assuming you mean 408 west to I-4 west? Iirc 417 is north and south only. If so, then yes, I traveled the new 408 ramp a few months ago. I think it had just opened and I saw the I-Drive skyline. It was pretty amazing to see. I think it’ll continue to grow when the Polercoaster, Gyro Drop, and Slingshot are complete. It would be nice if it were in downtown, like Nashville’s tourism district is right in the heart of its CBD, but oh well.

Speaking of other areas siphoning away from downtown, Lake Nona is building a little city with a mini skyline as well. Again, if Orlando were more cohesive and compact, I think the city would be so much more vibrant. But everything is so fractured and discrete. I wish the city was more unified.

Yes, I did mean 408

I was thinking more along the lines of the hotels that make a scattered skyline that runs the length of Universal/International about 9 miles or so from Vineland Rd. down to 417 (I do mean 417 this time.)

Yes, downtown Lake Nona is plugging away. I tried to point that in a post 6 months - a year ago when folks were saying that Lake Nona is going to head down market because of the location (that it's far from jobs.) But yeah, they're building their own downtown.

It makes more sense if you think of Orlando as a metro area of 4-5 million. Plus, the area has always been decentralized like that so downtown Orlando was already in a weak position in terms of becoming regionally dominant. It's a bummer but as soon as I-4 and 408 broke up downtown (the combined acreage of the highways and ramps in the downtown area are equivalent to the total acreage of the existing downtown) it was more or less game over for that.

Here's an old rail map of the area - it's like spaghetti and if there's any sort of "center" at all it seems to be around Sanford - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florid..._railroads.png

If you compare it to a city like Chicago it's like it was just guaranteed to be huge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...tra-System.png

[boy3365]

Yes. You do get a pretty good view of the I-Drive area and tourist area in general from the new 408/I-4 ramp. Also, if you are taking I-4 W to Kirkman toward I-Drive, you can look both ways and get good views of both Downtown and what they used to call "Downtown Orange County" back when the city and the county had beef.

Our fragmentation is why I think Tampa (the city) feels bigger than Orlando. To me, it seems like so much of what Tampa is known for is relatively close to downtown.

[JMatl]

Originally Posted by boy3365

Yes. You do get a pretty good view of the I-Drive area and tourist area in general from the new 408/I-4 ramp. Also, if you are taking I-4 W to Kirkman toward I-Drive, you can look both ways and get good views of both Downtown and what they used to call "Downtown Orange County" back when the city and the county had beef.

Our fragmentation is why I think Tampa (the city) feels bigger than Orlando. To me, it seems like so much of what Tampa is known for is relatively close to downtown.

Totally agree on Tampa. It's also much older and a port city, it has that Northern industrial feel that Orlando will never have. If you haven't seen the progress on the Water Street development, check it out. They are literally building a very urban extension to Downtown, and this is just phase 1!