Uncommon

https://www.orlandoentertainmentnews.com/?p=21924 https://bungalower.com/2023/05/28/ace-cafe-finally-admits-that-its-closing/

I wonder if any of this has to do with Cameron Kuhn and did 390-ft tower proposal just a block away from where Ace Cafe is.

Who knows but the building will be demoed to make space for a high-rise apartment building. I haven't heard anything but I hope it's worth it. Leveling Ace Cafe for another Radius would be horrific in my opinion.

I hope construction begins soon. This would be huge for downtown and for the Magic. I know the Under-I project has mostly changed to parking now but hopefully the part that is still a park is close to the arena and therefore will create a continuous event space for people to gather, especially if we get awarded the NBA All-Star Game in a couple years.

Food was good but gave my wife horrible diarrhea.

Net. Orlando metro is estimated to have gone from 2.67m to 2.76m since 2020 census. I expect some of Florida's explosive growth to slow down some but even though Orlando is definitely less affordable than it used to be, it'll continue to attract people from more expensive places just like it always has until cost of living evens out. Florida is still a bargain compared to NY and California.

No I don't think they would. I think the optics would look abysmal if they incited employees to move 3,000 miles away, sell and purchase property, and uproot their entire lives, just to say, "jk nvm, you need to move back to Cali and redo everything all over again even though it's our fault we changed our minds." In fact, I think the LEAST they can do is allow those employees to remain in Florida if they so chose while still remaining employed (for now). Idk if this is a delay but I will say Chapek made some sweeping changes and decisions that clearly haven't worked out and Iger has had to clean up a lot of his messes, so I would wager this Lake Nona thing is more a cancellation than a delay, and Disney's timing in announcing this as a potential answer to DeSantis is a masterstroke; in essence, they get carte blanche for an otherwise horrible-looking about-face, and they also get a villain/scapegoat for what they determined was a bad decision to move those 2,000 jobs in the first place. Bravo, Disney. They are absolutely whooping Ron's *ss and having a hand in undermining his presidential aspirations. Disney 1, Desantis 0. Actually, at this point, it's more like Disney 7, Ron -3.

Interesting but he kinda sounds like a drunk grandpa that elicits eyerolls, sighs, and "sure thing, oldtimer" from listeners. Sure, he's an Orlando Magic legend but I don't think he has the cache needed to sway decision-makers to give Orlando a shot. I certainly give him credit but ultimately I feel like most of this is falling on deaf ears.

Everything in Orlando seems to get delayed by at least 2-3 years so I'll look forward to this completing in Q2 2028.

Agreed. Explosive growth is generally never a good thing for individual residents, although it may be good for the region's economy and future outlook. I'm torn. On one hand, I want Orlando to be among the largest cities in the nation and improve density, walkability, urbanity, and public transit, which normally follows population growth. But on the other, the traffic and congestion and lines at random places are the worst they have ever been and QOL is suffering from where I stand.

So this was all about homeless people? Aren't there more effective ways to keep bums out of a 7-11? It can't be that all of this was to get rid of the riffraff. Maybe that was a part of it but I can't imagine that was the little old ladies' primary intentions. Whether or not it truly was about extending the park remains to be seen (unlikely) but I think it was more about not having a high rise obstruct views imo.

Ron DeSantis is a f***ing moron. And I'm about as apolitical as there is. This piece of s**t is literally responsible for costing thousands of jobs and millions in investment in the Orlando area. F***ing clown.

Love it. Very happy it'll activate that portion of Ivanhoe. Hopefully it gets built before 2030, I know these things can take a lot of time to get off the ground.

What is this?

I am happy to come back to this thread. This doom-and-gloom outlook is so tired but a part of me gets it when the team has been bad to mediocre for so long. To have lasted until the very end of the season to be eliminated from playoff contention is a net positive from one of the youngest teams in the league. It's baffling that you're able to make all these complaints but not even be willing to give credit where it's due, considering a 29-27 record since January from a team full of sub-25 year olds. And then to literally dogmatically predict a ceiling in year 2 of the rebuild in addition to locker room dissension and our top pieces being traded during their ROOKIE contracts when they're at their cheapest is pretty sad. Forget eating crow; you may need to renounce your fandom lol otherwise you run the risk of being fairweather and bandwagon hopping.

Once again, I don't judge him for off-the-court stuff. I couldn't care less about the DeVos family, what they do or did or whatever else you may hate them for. I care about about the product on the floor. So yes, I despise that the lot has been empty for a decade and he probably gets the blame for it but that has absolutely no bearing on what I think of him as a Magic employee whose goal it is to create a championship team. I love the direction the team is going and I do believe they're in prime position to seriously compete moving ahead. As far as the Magic being well on their way, that's a joke. They averaged 32 wins the 3 seasons from 2004-2006. He was hired, he cleaned shop and jettisoned dead weight players like Steve Francis and Grant Hill, cleared lots of cap space to sign Rashard Lewis, and boom, they finally have a true breakout and get to 50 wins. That's not a coincidence no matter how you try to dice it. I understand off-the-court stuff makes you loath the man and his entire "clan," but at least be able to have a teeny bit of objectivity to assign him credit for team success if you're going to levy blame on him for team failures.

These are all around the city, but JFW is right, I've never seen it in downtown until now. I love it. Hope they continue doing this.

I was getting ready to reply to @JFW657 also saying I agree 100% with his last comment about how people tend to validate their own lives through their sports teams but I decided to let it go and not continue to detail that thread. For me, I think it has more to do with validating and bringing awareness to the city of Orlando more than validating my and success. Just look what winning and Tom Brady did for Tampa. In part due to Vinik, Tampa has been legitimized and is now squarely on the map and now generally thought of as a top place to live. Sure, it's not all because of sports, but it bought a lot of positive exposure to the area. The Magic can do more of the same, I feel. And I honestly believe they are on the path to bringing some legitimacy to Orlando as a sports city and region independent of Mickey Mouse.

Yes! That was my last comment!

Truthfully, I don't give a damn about Alex Martins, have never met him, and generally do not know of or care about Amway or the DeVos family allegedly being scummy people. All I care about is effort made and the product on the court and that's how I judge ownership. I'll give you Otis mishandling the Dwight situation, and the Gilbert Arenas trade was an abomination, but the Magic were struggling a lot before then, Vince Carter was washed, and the Magic had peaked as a team, so I understand why Otis felt a shakeup was necessary, but yeah, it ended up being a disaster. I still give him credit for being the architect (along with Stan Van Gundy) of a team that was the model that all NBA teams eventually followed and continue following today. Coaching hires is kind of a weak argument. Literally every single franchise cycles through bad coaches until they find a good one, especially bad teams, and even then, it's such a transient and retread position that every franchise will have 3 awful coaches for every 1 decent coach. I don't blame the GM one bit for any bad coaching hire, nor do I think they deserve praise for good coaching hires. It's literally a crapshoot. Anyway, calling a franchise a failure or success is totally dependent on a variety of factors. GSW are about to be a low seed. You'd call them a failure, ignoring things like last year, injuries, age and experience, future outlook, salary cap, etc? That's not a sustainable way to view whether a team is a success or not. The Magic are the 3rd youngest team in the league, have gobs of money to spend, have almost all of their players under contract for multiple years at reasonable dollars, have 2 top-10 picks next year, have 2 likely future all-stars, and a 29-26 record since a 5-20 start due to a massive amount of injuries. I don't care what you or anyone says. The future is indeed bright and any naysayers now better keep that same damn energy when the team is winning.

Apparently it is rocket science because "quite a few whiffs" is inaccurate. Since being hired as CEO in 2006, Alex Martins has had one whiff to be exact: GM Rob Hennigan in 2013, who was atrocious and set the franchise back a solid decade with his awful moves. But the current GM, John Hammond, is very well-respected around the league and has done a damn good job cleaning up Hennigan's mess since being hired in 2017. And before Hennigan, Otis Smith was very solid as GM and put together the team that averaged 56 wins from 2007-2012.

If this is because people hate the DeVos family due to Amway or politics, then I have nothing to say about that. Hate away as long as you recognize the hate is for off-the-court reasons. But if you or anyone else thinks these men have a significant say in the moves the Magic make day-to-day, like free agent signings, draft picks, roster construction, starters vs bench players, coaching, and more on-the-court products, then I'll say I HIGHLY disagree, but I'll play ball anyway: Alex Martins was hired as CEO in 2006. Before he was hired, the Magic averaged a mediocre 38 wins the previous 8 seasons. Immediately upon his hiring, they reeled off 52 wins, 59 wins, 59 wins again, and then 52 wins, including 1 Finals berth. If he gets the blame for the Magic failures, does he also get the credit for their immediate success?

Any idea how?

Not to be rude, but do you have any idea what you're talking about? Which of these executives are the ones who should be fired? It's easy to say "fire this person," but who exactly are you suggesting to fire and for what reason exactly?

Idk, I like it