Master Development Agreement<\/a> between Kissimmee and Azure, the convention center is set to open in early 2029 and has a planned 1.5 year construction timeline. The hotel is set to open shortly after the center, also in 2029. That portion of the project will have a 42-month construction timeline.<\/p>\n\u201cThere are millions of visitors that come every year, for leisure, for conventions. Having a hotel in the downtown of Kissimmee will allow the city to capture a share of all that,\u201d Kissimmee Economic Development Director David Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
In addition to the convention center, the hotel will include restaurants, retail space, and other amenities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s still some steps to complete the due diligence prior to demolition, but that demolition should happen in about one or two months,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
Business owners in the area, such as John Glover from Big John\u2019s Rockin\u2019 BBQ, said they imagine the hotel and convention center will draw in more clientele in the downtown community. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a lot of residential that we get in Osceola County, and we have people traveling from basically all over Florida to come check it out and have repeat customers,\u201d Glover said. \u201cWe have tourists come in, and we have regulars from Europe, in the UK that always call and want to make reservations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Glover said his restaurant and bar used to be open on Broadway Avenue, but they have since moved closer to Lakefront Park and to the site of the current and future convention centers. He said they recently purchased a portion of the building just a few blocks from the civic center to remodel his family\u2019s restaurant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m also happy about the extra tourism that it’s going to bring. I know they’re going to have a couple restaurants and things like that, but (you) can’t eat there every day. You know what I mean? They’ll get out and explore the local cuisine, and I’m hoping we’re one of them,\u201d Glover said.<\/p>\n
He said one concern is traffic when the demolition and construction begin.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy main concern is the traffic, are they going to be rerouted? How is that going to go? Basically, because if they make it harder for people to get down to the lakefront, are they still going to come?\u201d Glover said. \u201cMaybe once they learn the route, it’ll be OK. That’s just my main concern.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodriguez\u00a0said that once construction and demolition are complete, traffic delays should resolve.<\/p>\n
\u201cUndoubtedly it will have some impact in the local area, driving around while construction happens, but those details are typically taken care of by the builder. That is part of the plan that is presented to the city. So it’s, it’s a temporary inconvenience,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KISSIMMEE, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The city of Kissimmee plans to demolish the existing civic center in downtown in the coming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2031,274,558,2204,24498,115,139,141,140,6505,1976,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-192266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-local-business","tag-app-top-stories","tag-business","tag-instagram-n13","tag-jordan-mead","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-osceola","tag-osceola-county","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}