Dr. Phillips Charities<\/a> has committed $20 million of its own money to the project and says it will donate the land back to the town after development.<\/p>\nDr. Phillips Charities said the organization expects the Hungerford property to close by the end of the month.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got our planning in place and we\u2019re ready to go,\u201d Kenneth Robinson, president and CEO of Dr. Phillips Charities, said.<\/p>\n
Robinson said the plan calls for a campus that includes festival space and a cultural museum. He said the festival space could hold 3,000 people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you see is a campus, a fully activated town,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cYou have the festival space in the middle that I said can hold 3,000 people. Up on the top left you have the cultural museum.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Robinson, the project would create 109 permanent jobs and 300 to 400 construction jobs. He said construction would happen in 2029, with the museum opening in 2030.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the property under contract,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cIf you have a vision, if you have a plan, if you don\u2019t have money, it\u2019s just a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some town leaders have said the project needs more clarity. At an Aug. 4 meeting, Eatonville Council Member Wanda Randolph said better collaboration with the town should have happened earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you really want to work with the town and create really good collaboration, I think that request should have already been made,\u201d Randolph said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Bah\u00edyyah Maroon, chair of the Eatonville Initiative Advisory Committee, said Wednesday\u2019s community meet and greet at Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church was meant to focus on collaboration and show residents the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cResidents have been saying for well over a decade that they want and deserve to have an Eatonville Museum of History and Culture that celebrates them, their story,\u201d Maroon said.<\/p>\n
Residents at the event shared different visions for the property.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s my vision for Eatonville, another Black Wall Street,\u201d Eatonville resident Tiletha Wells said. \u201cIt may be small, but we\u2019re powerful when we come together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eatonville resident Regina Johnson said she wants to see resources that help the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we really do need here is a hospital for real,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe need things that will help one another out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final Tourist Development Tax Citizen Advisory Committee meeting is scheduled for Aug. 11.<\/p>\n
The Orange County Board of County Commissioners plans to vote later this month on which projects will receive funding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EATONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Dr. Phillips Charities is seeking $60 million in Orange County tourist development tax revenue to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[767,3140,2031,274,36321,558,770,43147,2287,115,1335,139,141,140,278,1316],"class_list":["post-364272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-community","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-local-business","tag-app-top-stories","tag-app-tourism","tag-business","tag-community-news","tag-devin-martin","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-top-stories","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364272","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=364272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}