Hopefully, County Commission will give us venues worthy of Taylor Swift, World Cup | Commentary

The Orange County Commission will decide on Tuesday how Orlando moves forward as an entertainment and sports destination city.

Nothing against Streisand (I still get weepy when I hear her sing The Way We Were.), but she’s an octogenarian and doesn’t do concerts anymore. But even at 81 years old, it should be noted that Streisand is still 10 years younger than Camping World Stadium.

The reason I bring this up is because the Orange County Commission will decide whether to allot $400 million in tourist development tax (TDT) money to renovate Camping World Stadium and $256 million to update Amway, er, Kia Center.

Why is this even a decision or a debate?

Of course, we need to update our city (and county) venues.

When TDT money was originally approved to build the arena and the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts while giving Camping World Stadium a much-needed face lift, the civic mantra back then was, “Do Them All. Do Them Now. Do Them Right.”

Well, here we are 18 years later and I have a new mantra:

“Maintain Them All. Maintain Them Now. Maintain Them Right.”

If you’re going to spend the money to build a house, you’re going to eventually have to allot the money to fix that house. You have to replace the AC system and the roof every several years. Or maybe, as the family grows, you want to add a new room so you’ll have more space. If you want to entertain and invite people over to your house then you have to keep it looking nice.

On a large scale basis, that’s essentially what we’re talking about here: If we want to be the hospitality capital of the world and invite people into our city (and county) so we can entertain them then shouldn’t we have nice things?

Our county commissioners are smart people; they know this. That’s why they have already approved nearly $600 million in TDT money for another expansion of the Orange County Convention Center. If Orlando wants to continue to be a major player in attracting convention tourism to compete with Vegas, Chicago, etc., then commissioners believe we need our convention center to be state of the art.

It’s the same for Camping World Stadium and Kia Center with the difference being that those venues not only attract tourism, but local residents get to enjoy them as well. I’ve never been to a Shriner’s summit at the convention center, but I’ve been to plenty of concerts and sporting events at Camping World Stadium and Kia Center.

Quite frankly, it’s astoundingly impressive to me that Camping World draws the business it does (see the Rolling Stones, the Pro Bowl, WrestleMania, premier international soccer matches involving teams such as Real Madrid, neutral site college football games such as Miami-Florida and FSU-LSU and two of the premier non-New Year’s Six bowl games in the country) even though it’s badly outdated.

Can you believe the entire upper deck of Camping World still has those old high school-style metal bleachers? Did you realize Camping World’s upper deck wouldn’t pass building code if it were being constructed today?

It’s no wonder Taylor Swift passed up Orlando for Tampa a few months ago. It’s no wonder Orlando just barely missed the cut to host World Cup games in 2026. And in the future, we have no chance of hosting college football playoff games unless we upgrade our stadium.

Doesn’t Orlando deserve a stadium that we can proud of instead of one in which we’re self-conscious about every time we host a big-time event? I’m not saying Camping World Stadium needs to be as nice as some of these palatial multibillion-dollar NFL stadiums, but it doesn’t have to be. Orlando itself is a multibillion-dollar destination. People desperately want to come to the City Beautiful; we just need to make our stadium nice enough so it doesn’t become the reason that concerts and sporting events don’t want to come here.

The $400 million in TDT money Camping World Stadium is asking for may seem like a lot, but it pales in comparison to the $2 billion stadium project the City of Jacksonville is currently considering.

As for Amway Center, it’s nearly 15 years old now and has a variety of mechanical, electrical and technological issues — everything from new Zambonis for the Solar Bears and NHL exhibition games … to new spotlights for Magic games, concerts and high school graduations … to new garage doors on the loading docks … to new kitchen and freezer equipment … to new fire and safety apparatus … to new computer systems and servers to run all of the modernized technology needed to host first-class concerts and sporting events.

As Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer has pointed out, the county-owned convention center is modernized and maintained every year with millions in TDT subsidies whereas city-owned venues such as Camping World Stadium and Kia Center have pretty much been left to fend for themselves..

“We [the city] operate these buildings at our cost and we think these buildings are not, as some have suggested, city of Orlando buildings,” Dyer said. “We believe these are community buildings that benefit the entire region.”

He’s right. This should not be a city vs. county issue. Orlando is Orange County and Orange County is Orlando. We are one and the same.

And the beauty of using the TDT to keep our venues maintained is that the money isn’t actually our own taxpayer money. It’s coming from Joe and Jane from Omaha and the millions of other tourists who visit Orlando on an annual basis.