ORLANDO, Fla. – With multiple sporting events happening in downtown Orlando, people said they’re noticing more visitors to to the area.
“We had that trifecta come together,” said Executive Director Downtown Development and Community Redevelopment, David Barilla. “We had basketball, we had soccer, we even had some preforming arts going on at Dr. Phillips.”
The City Beautiful has been busy, from NBA playoffs, to Kelly Cup finals, people said they notice more foot traffic in downtown Orlando.
“I think it’s great,” said Leicest Fraley, who works in downtown Orlando. “It’s bringing tourists, people out here, more businesses and it’s good.”
[EXCLUSIVE: Become a News 6 Insider (it’s FREE) | PINIT! Share your photos]
Others said in addition to more people coming through downtown, they’ve noticed other improvements.
“I’d say it looks cleaner downtown,” Allison Graham said. “There’s a lot more people out and about I think.”
“There’s been a lot more people lately, I’ve seen a lot more tourist trips than I used to,” said Gabriel Mora. “Especially during the day.”
Allison Graham and Gabriel Mora don’t live in Orlando, but work downtown and said the recent buzz surrounding our hometown teams has encouraged them to spend their time and money there.
“We were actually just looking to see if anything was going to be happening mother’s day to take our mom’s out here for any of the sports or whatever,” Mora said.
Orange County Comptroller Phil Diamond also weighing in on how a big playoff run for the Magic could bring in more out of town visitors to Orange County.
“When you can get people from Cleveland or Boston or Denver, Minnesota to come here, they’re probably going to be staying in a hotel,” Diamond said. “They’re probably going to be staying for a few days. They may take in a trip to the theme parks. And that’s really, you know, and that’s really the best of all worlds, and you can get the most economic impact with that kind of situation.”
But unlike our favorite sports teams, economic growth and development in Downtown Orlando can’t take an offseason.
We asked Barilla how we keep the excitement and momentum around Downtown Orlando’s growth even after the seasons end.
“One of our newer initiatives is actually partnering with United Arts and making sure that we have activations in downtown every day,” Barilla said. “So, we recently partnered with them to bring over 850 different experiences to downtown throughout the year. So you can do the math. That’s like over three at any one given time.”
The Orlando Magic will take on the Cleveland Cavaliers this Friday, May 3 at the Kia Center. The Solar Bears will play their first home game in the second round of the Kelly Cup playoffs on Tuesday, May 7.