Universal pledges land for housing
Will dedicate 20 acres for 1,000 affordable units, 3 acres for transit connections
On the eve of a crucial vote for its new theme park, Universal Orlando announced Monday it will dedicate 20 acres of its land to build about 1,000 affordable-housing units to help address Central Florida’s housing crisis.
Universal also said it will set aside about 3 acres of its land to be used for masstransit connections, although the company provided few other details — including the monetary value of the land, who Universal will give it to, and what exactly will be built upon it.
“Universal has always tried to be aware of and sensitive to the needs of the community and we’ve tried to respond to that in a number of different ways,” said John Sprouls, Universal Orlando’s chief executive officer.
Universal announced the land commitments 24 hours before Orange
County Mayor Jerry Demings and county commissioners are scheduled to vote on a controversial plan to give $125 million in local tax money to Universal to help pay for a new road through the 750-acre property upon which the company plans to build Epic
“We didn’t feel any pressure to provide this because of the hearing [Tuesday] ... We’ve been working on this for months; it’s just taken awhile to come together.” John Sprouls, Universal Orlando’s chief executive officer
Universe, its third theme park in Central Florida.
The land Universal has pledged for affordable housing and mass transit, located along Destination Parkway just east of the Orange County Convention Center, has a market value of $9.5 million, according to the Orange County Property Appraiser’s Office.
Sprouls said the land announcement was unrelated to the impending vote on the road deal, which has been attacked by critics as an unnecessary handout to one of the world’s most profitable companies. Universal is owned by Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp., which turned a profit of more than $11.7 billion last year.
“We didn’t feel any pressure to provide this because of the hearing tomorrow [Tuesday],” Sprouls said. “We’ve been working on this for months; it’s just taken awhile to come together.”
Demings and four of the six Orange County commissioners joined Universal executives for the announcement. But one of those commissioners said she remains undecided on the $125 million road vote.
“Yes, that’s good,” Orange County Commissioner Maribel Gómez Cordero said of Universal’s land pledge. “I still have to dig into it. But you know we have a housing crisis right now. I know they can do more.”
Universal will also get a $16 million state grant to help pay for the road, which would extend Kirkman Road south from Sand Lake Road. And Universal has applied for nearly $350 million in state tax breaks to help offset the costs of a new headquarters for its theme-park design division that Universal plans to build on the same land as Epic Universe.
Epic Universe is expected to open in 2023.
Most of the $125 million that Orange County would give to Universal for the Kirkman Road project — which Universal currently estimates will cost $306 million overall — would come from a special taxing district in the International
Drive tourism corridor.
The district, established in 1998, prevents additional property taxes generated by redevelopment and growth in the tourism corridor from going into the county’s general-revenue fund, where it could be spent on anything from parks to police. Instead, commissioners are supposed to spend the money on transportation improvements to benefit the tourism corridor.
That taxing district is supposed to expire in 2028, at which point all property taxes generated in the tourist corridor would start going into the county’s general fund, where they could be spent on countywide needs. But part of the initial deal negotiated by Universal and the Demings administration would have extended that taxing district until 2040.
Demings announced late last week that he has decided not to support that 12-year extension for now and said he had ordered his staff to study other potential uses for the money it generates. But the mayor said Monday he might still support keeping the tourism corridor’s taxing district in place at some point.
“That’s a decision that will be made in the future,” Demings said. “It may expire and it may not.”
In addition to the $125 million road deal with Universal, the county commission will also vote Tuesday on recommendations set forth by a 38-person Housing for All task force, which included executives from Universal and Disney, to create or preserve as many as 30,300 affordable units over the next decade.
In Orange County, 31% of the 320,000 households are cost-burdened, meaning they spend at least a third of their income on housing.
The housing task force included not only Rhonda Rhodes, vice president of human resources at Universal Orlando, and Rena Langley, senior vice president of public affairs at Walt Disney World Resort, but also architects, Realtors, politicians and leaders from nonprofits and hospitals. They were tasked to develop a strategy to lift the Orlando area from last place among U.S. cities for affordable housing, a rank assigned by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
One of the recommendations calls for a local Housing Trust Fund that would raise an estimated $160 million over 10 years and be dedicated to affordable housing projects.
The money could help finance multi-family projects, impact fee subsidies and pilot projects in areas most in need of housing, as well as the development of diverse housing types and preservation of current housing stock.
Having locally controlled money for affordable housing is critical to “ensure a reliable source of funds,” the Housing for All report states.
A state housing fund, known as the Sadowski Fund, has been raided annually by legislators with other priorities.
This year lawmakers took $125 million from the fund to cover other expenses. Another $115 million went to rebuild homes in the Panhandle after Hurricane Michael struck there in 2018.
If the fund had been untouched, counties and cities could have split $350 million as recommended in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ budget.
But with only crumbs left to spread around, Orange County will get about $1.9 million, about 12% of what the county would have received before the Legislative siphoning. About 600 households could have been helped if the county had gotten its full share, county housing expert Mitchell Glasser said.
Sprouls, the Universal Orlando chief executive, said Universal’s pledge Monday to provide 20 acres for affordable housing was a way to help other than giving money.
“We’ve been talking about how do we respond? Clearly people responding with money is important. But is there a better way? Was there a bigger way we could do something?” Sprouls said.
“By donating the land, we ought to be able to make it extremely affordable because whoever ends up ultimately developing the land doesn’t have to pay for the land.”