A panel filled with tourism-industry representatives surprisingly voted Tuesday to forward without change a citizens task force’s report that did not recommend funding a $523 million expansion of the county’s convention center.

The Tourist Development Council neither endorsed nor criticized the task force report during a special meeting to review its recommendations, which also were “thumbs down” on two other big-money requests for a piece of the county’s hotel-tax haul: a proposed billion-dollar set-aside for a Major League Baseball stadium and a $120 million plan for sports facilities at the University of Central Florida.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said it will now be up to Orange County commissioners to decide what, if any, of the proposals will be funded. While commissioners aren’t bound by the recommendations of the Tourist Development Tax Citizen Advisory Task Force, they’re likely to give them great weight as commissioners appointed 10 of the 30 panelists.

Concerned about projected “return on investment,” Tourist Development Council member Jonathan McGavin, area manager of the Grande Lakes Orlando resort, wanted the board to hear all the applicants’ proposals before sending the task force report onto commissioners. But his suggestion was voted down.

The citizen task force spent more than 24 hours in public sessions listening to proposals and weighing their merits.

Orange task force votes down Convention Center expansion, baseball stadium

The task force, representing municipalities, chambers of commerce, labor and the county’s diverse geographical areas, reviewed two dozen requests for money that totaled about $3 billion. The applicants were seeking a share of future revenues generated by the so-called TDT, the 6% surcharge collected on hotel stays and other short-term lodging rentals.

The tax has raised $324.9 million through June 30, $21.8 million ahead of last year’s record pace, and could break $400 million by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2025-26. That would be a first for the tax, enacted by a voter referendum in 1978 primarily to build the Orange County Convention Center.

Tax revenues are already paying off the costs of a number of local projects, including earlier phases of the convention center expansion, but hundreds of millions of dollars remain unallocated. By law the money must be spent to support tourism.

The task force recommended the county commission “explore every avenue to advance alternative uses of the tax, including but not limited to transportation and affordable housing…and make it a legislative priority.” In the past, the state legislature has rejected such pleas.

Demings thanked task force co-chairs Lift Orlando’s Eddy Moratin and former Orange County Mayor Linda Chapin for their work, but recognized the plethora of petitions for a share of the revenues far exceed the likely income, even thought Orange County’s collections outstrip those of any other of Florida’s 67 counties.

“We have the blessing of money and everybody wants some of it,” the mayor said. “But everybody isn’t going to get some of it.”

shudak@orlandosentinel.com