Orlando Citrus Bowl Stadium [Renovation Completed]

[jack]

Sounds like it (Citrus Bowl) is working as designed. 

[HankStrong]

15 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

@HankStrong has a crush on OSCAR!

I feel as strongly about public transportation as many of you feel about containing sprawl and population density.

[orlandoguy]

Wouldn’t extending the Lymmo Grapefruit line to CWS effectively serve this need? I agree a streetcar would be ideal, but the (assumedly) massive cost and infrastructure requirements would likely be major deterrents.

[JFW657]

2 hours ago, orlandoguy said:

Wouldn’t extending the Lymmo Grapefruit line to CWS effectively serve this need? I agree a streetcar would be ideal, but the (assumedly) massive cost and infrastructure requirements would likely be major deterrents.

My question is, why have a dedicated, permanent route running every day to and from a stadium that is only used a handful of times per year?

Most of the time the stadium sits unused and nobody has any reason to go there.

Seems like an as-needed setup like they have in place now, would do the job just fine.

[smileguy]

11 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

My question is, why have a dedicated, permanent route running every day to and from a stadium that is only used a handful of times per year?

Most of the time the stadium sits unused and nobody has any reason to go there.

Seems like an as-needed setup like they have in place now, would do the job just fine.

This! It would work as a mid-way stop between Downtown and I-Drive, but not as a destination. Also, it'd barely make a dent in the transportation needs, and busses would likely also be run as they are today. 

[spenser1058]

Given there are lots of folks living around the stadium, it may be worthwhile for that reason but it would obviously need to be studied for use.

 

[codypet]

25 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

My question is, why have a dedicated, permanent route running every day to and from a stadium that is only used a handful of times per year?

Most of the time the stadium sits unused and nobody has any reason to go there.

Seems like an as-needed setup like they have in place now, would do the job just fine.

Maybe I'd want to go to Lorna Doone Park

[JFW657]

7 minutes ago, codypet said:

Maybe I'd want to go to Lorna Doone Park

I'm guessing there's already a bus that goes there.

[spenser1058]

Lorna Doone is apparently gonna be quite the deal - the construction activity is spread out all over the place.

NOTE TO NITE OWL: I just said something nice about a Buddy project...

Edited January 3, 2020 by spenser1058

[spenser1058]

This year’s Citrus Bowl game saw ABC’s largest bowl game audience since the 2010 national title game.

https://twitter.com/bianchiwrites/status/1213172046525452288?s=21

 

[spenser1058]

One way of thinking about whether the Citrus Bowl is in the right place: as the OCCC was expanded, it was considered critical to have convention hotels adjoining it.

When planning a beach vacation, most likely you’ll stay at a hotel on the beach or just across the street.

Have you noticed there’s not a single hotel (or motel, for that matter) by the Citrus Bowl? Well, except the Vacation Lodge (for which we sadly ditched the Wigwam Village) and the Sun Glo up on OBT. Both of those make me askeered...

This is efficient again, how? Some insist the Citrus Bowl should be where it is so 50,000 people can drive a dozen miles to attend an event where they probably won’t walk about one+ miles to party afterward and then have to Uber back to the Citrus Bowl to drive the dozen miles back from where they came.

@AndyPok1 notes that some folks (mostly singles and couples sans kids) chose to stay downtown. Some things come to mind: first, there’s not enough occupancy at the downtown hotels to accommodate anything approaching a plurality of folks attending the game. Further, since it’s only for a few nights/year, it doesn’t make sense to build enough hotels downtown to accommodate them all.

 Isn’t it odd that, if attracting folks downtown is a priority, that the folks at FCS and by extension the folks at the city seem to not be doing much to make that happen (if they were, why are the host hotels almost always on I-Drive?) One of the major events downtown associated with the Bowl was the Florida Citrus Parade, which has been canceled. One assumes it wasn’t all that popular with bowlgoers if it was canceled and apparently not worth bringing folks downtown from the standpoint of the city.

Maybe all this makes sense to someone somewhere but I confess my feeble mind is missing out on how this is the most efficient manner to handle this. 

Edited January 4, 2020 by spenser1058

[spenser1058]

Let’s talk for a moment about how important it is for a stadium to be downtown. I can’t think of a better place to start than probably the most walkcentric major city in the country - Boston.

Do the Pats play at a stadium within walking distance of downtown? Ummmm, no. They play in Foxborough, which is quite a stroll from the center of town at 30 miles away.

I’d have to study this, but the older stadia that are “downtown” may not have been when they were constructed. With the Superdome in New Orleans or Atlanta’s Georgia Dome, tourists often took priority over minority community residents when they were built.

In the case of the Citrus Bowl, it was relatively far out in the 1930’s, built next door to Tinker Field and, at 8,000 seats, it wasn’t all that big to start with. We’ll forego any discussion of whether the expansion to 50000+ seats in the ‘70’s would have ever happened in a mostly white neighborhood.

Meanwhile, neither Tampa nor Miami have downtown stadia. Jacksonville’s Gator Bowl is ostensibly “downtown” but you certainly wouldn’t want to walk to town from there.

The truth is that very few want to live next to a football stadium. Wrigley Field and Fenway Park may be “quaint” for baseball but no one has ever used that term for a football stadium.

Ironically, as our downtowns come back to life, the folks living there are even less likely to value living next to a 50 -100000 seat facility with vast asphalt parking lots surrounding it (transit can only go so far in moving that many people in so short a time, especially in a Sunbelt city).

Let’s think about this before we invest more money in the Citrus Bowl, shall we? What made perfect sense in 1936 (when it was the ‘burbs) may not be the right answer in 2036.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 4, 2020 by spenser1058

[JFW657]

3 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

Let’s talk for a moment about how important it is for a stadium to be downtown. I can’t think of a better place to start than probably the most walkcentric major city in the country - Boston.

Do the Pats play at a stadium within walking distance of downtown? Ummmm, no. They play in Foxborough, which is quite a stroll from the center of town at 30 miles away.

I’d have to study this, but the older stadia that are “downtown” may not have been when they were constructed. With the Superdome in New Orleans or Atlanta’s Georgia Dome, tourists often took priority over minority community residents when they were built.

In the case of the Citrus Bowl, it was relatively far out in the 1930’s, built next door to Tinker Field and, at 8,000 seats, it wasn’t all that big to start with. We’ll forego any discussion of whether the expansion to 50000+ seats in the ‘70’s would have ever happened in a mostly white neighborhood.

Meanwhile, neither Tampa nor Miami have downtown stadia. Jacksonville’s Gator Bowl is ostensibly “downtown” but you certainly wouldn’t want to walk to town from there.

The truth is that very few want to live next to a football stadium. Wrigley Field and Fenway Park may be “quaint” for baseball but no one has ever used that term for a football stadium.

Ironically, as our downtowns come back to life, the folks living there are even less likely to value living next to a 50 -100000 seat facility with vast asphalt parking lots surrounding it (transit can only go so far in moving that many people in so short a time, especially in a Sunbelt city).

Let’s think about this before we invest more money in the Citrus Bowl, shall we? What made perfect sense in 1936 (when it was the ‘burbs) may not be the right answer in 2036.

By your above examples, our stadium is not "downtown" either. 

It's just not 10 miles down I-4 in the tourist district as you've suggested it should be.

Orlando isn't Boston. Neither is it Los Angeles where the new stadium is being built even farther from downtown than I-Drive. But it's all irrelevant anyway, because those stadiums are home to pro teams and those cities have long, established profession sports histories. But if we want to get into a tit-for-tat trade-off, I'd bet that for every far away from downtown stadium you list, I could list one that's right in or near downtown.

Take Seattle, for instance...

Or St. Louis...

But, as I said, comparisons of Orlando to such cities is irrelevant. Orlando is in a different situation because unlike pro sports stadiums where  professional home teams with loyal fan bases who'll drive to see them, play for 5 months per year,  CWS is an occasional use stadium meant to attract a few big, once per year college bowl games and a few other large events.

Getting out of town visitors to travel away from their tourist district hotels into the actual city of Orlando, and hopefully take the time to visit and spend some time downtown after the game, is something that should be encouraged. 

Plus, merely having another major venue located in or near downtown just adds to the inventory of "downtown things".

[spenser1058]

10 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

By your above examples, our stadium is not "downtown" either. 

It's just not 10 miles down I-4 in the tourist district as you've suggested it should be.

Orlando isn't Boston. Neither is it Los Angeles where the new stadium is being built even farther from downtown than I-Drive. But it's all irrelevant anyway, because those stadiums are home to pro teams and those cities have long, established profession sports histories. But if we want to get into a tit-for-tat trade-off, I'd bet that for every far away from downtown stadium you list, I could list one that's right in or near downtown.

Take Seattle, for instance...

Or St. Louis...

But, as I said, comparisons of Orlando to such cities is irrelevant. Orlando is in a different situation because unlike pro sports stadiums where  professional home teams with loyal fan bases who'll drive to see them, play for 5 months per year,  CWS is an occasional use stadium meant to attract a few big, once per year college bowl games and a few other large events.

Getting out of town visitors to travel away from their tourist district hotels into the actual city of Orlando, and hopefully take the time to visit and spend some time downtown after the game, is something that should be encouraged. 

Plus, merely having another major venue located in or near downtown just adds to the inventory of "downtown things".

You said at the beginning it wasn’t downtown but then at the end it is.

Further, there’s not much evidence it’s sending people to downtown. That’s the point. If it’s not doing what it’s supposed to and it’s unnecessarily generating traffic, and is likely not helping the redevelopment of the neighborhood around it, what’s the point?

We seem to be tied to the idea of the Citrus Bowl on Tampa Avenue simply because that’s where it has always been.

[JFW657]

14 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

You said at the beginning it wasn’t downtown but then at the end it is.

Further, there’s not much evidence it’s sending people to downtown. That’s the point. If it’s not doing what it’s supposed to and it’s unnecessarily generating traffic, and is likely not helping the redevelopment of the neighborhood around it, what’s the point?

We seem to be tied to the idea of the Citrus Bowl on Tampa Avenue simply because that’s where it has always been.

No, at the end I said "in or near downtown"

And, I also don't agree that "sending people downtown" is "what it's supposed to".

The phrase "what it's supposed to" implies primary purpose. But the primary purpose has never been "sending people downtown". It was attracting tens of thousands of visitors to the greater Orlando area to fill up hotels, restaurants, bars and retail outlets and in doing so, boost the local economy.

IF a percentage of them choose to party downtown before and linger downtown after the game, it's icing on the cake.

But as far as fulfilling it's primary purpose is concerned, CWS has more than done it's job.

[spenser1058]

4 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

No, at the end I said "in or near downtown"

And, I also don't agree that "sending people downtown" is "what it's supposed to".

The phrase "what it's supposed to" implies primary purpose. But the primary purpose has never been "sending people downtown". It was attracting tens of thousands of visitors to the greater Orlando area to fill up hotels, restaurants, bars and retail outlets and in doing so, boost the local economy.

IF a percentage of them choose to party downtown before and linger downtown after the game, it's icing on the cake.

But as far as fulfilling it's primary purpose is concerned, CWS has more than done it's job.

It would do all those things on I-Drive though and require far less overtaxing of transit (automobile and otherwise).

Put another way, if you were starting today, what is the likelihood you would choose the current location?

Edited January 4, 2020 by spenser1058

[JFW657]

5 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

It would do all those things on I-Drive though and require far less overtaxing of transit (automobile and otherwise).

Put another way, if you were starting today, what is the likelihood you would choose the current location?

Well, now you're ignoring another point I already made, which is total cost and cost vs benefit.

Given how much it cost to renovate the Citrus Bowl, how much do you think it would've cost to purchase land off of I-Drive then design and construct from the ground up, a brand new stadium? And I'm not talking about some cheap, wobbly, erector set stadium like UCF's. I'm talking about at the very LEAST, something akin to CWS.

Now, weigh that cost against the cost and the difference in benefit, to what we're getting with the current location.

I doubt the taxpayers would have even supported it.

I think it was the idea that we were utilizing and improving something that we already owned that made the costly renovation palatable to those who were on the fence but eventually supported it.

And one more final point that I already made in a previous post that you are also ignoring here.... the organizers and sponsors of the games we were trying to keep and the Pro Bowl, which were were trying to attract, were not going to just hang around while Orlando drug it's feet, wringing it's  hands over the plight of the neighborhood west of the trail, or tried to pull together all the things required to build and finance a brand new stadium off of I-Drive.

We would have lost those events to some other city and been left with an expensive boondoggle for which there was no use.

Starting today, I would STILL choose the current location.

[Urban Mail Carrier]

Well I say let’s use the stadium more often by encouraging an MLB team and incorporate the stadium into downtown... 

[AmIReal]

Way back when Mayor Dyer was first elected, a committee presented a look into improving the downtown district. Creation of a sports and entertainment district focused around a performance center and retaining the Magic  was the key. Over the next 3 years the City lobbied to use tourist tax money to build DPAC and the Amway Arena and make improvements to the stadium. There were numerous hearings, agencies and staff from both County and City wrote many reports and both governments voted to approve the projects. 

Those projects have been completed, the major forces of the district are in place and each of those is now in varying steps of the next phase. In the next 4 years the district will have the Steinmetz, the Magic S+ED (yes, I believe it will happen) and additional upgrades to the stadium. Also, the soccer stadium has been completed, CSP 1 is done and CSP 2 will follow, Lorna Doone park will be done and the under I4 project should be nearing completion. A few businesses have already started to move into the area (Interstruct announced last week) and I assume more will follow.  If the S+ED includes a conference center as proposed then you can bet more hotels, restaurants and shops will follow. 

Why are we discussing moving the stadium...?

[AndyPok1]

@spenser1058 There's too much to quote so just going this route.

Here's the thing.  These bowl games aren't necessarily destinations.  Last time OSU was in the Orange Bowl, I literally drove to Miami Gardens an hour before the game, and then drove home afterwards... you know why?  Because we were like 30 minutes from Miami so there was no point to staying.  With that said, people I know that went to the Tampa game... they stayed in Ybor or Channelside and then drove to the stadium.  If I had gone to the Fiesta Bowl, I would have stayed in one of the fun areas and then ubered to Glendale.  This is just how pro stadiums work.  

You point out where Boston and Miami's stadiums are.  By fans, they're almost universally hated, because you have to sit in traffic for hours to get home.  The combination of the Redzone network and football stadiums being poorly located are two of the bigger reasons for decline of NFL ticket sales.

But again, that's pro which, in my opinion, is a vastly different sport from college.  Most college stadiums are on college campuses which are inherently walkable.  Beyond the teams themselves and the police escort the get back to I-Drive, there's very little being taxed.  You and that random twitter guy are overthinking this one.

Edited January 4, 2020 by AndyPok1

[Urban Mail Carrier]

If the Mayor Demmings Orange County transportation tax passes then that could indeed be the game changer for development. I can envision Sunrail expansion westbound with inevitably a stop at CWS or at least nearby. This will tie in CWS nicely to the CBD.  A renovated CWS with reliable transportation could draw an MLB team to the stadium. IT can also push us over the hump in being awarded FIFA World Cup games for 2026. There is a lot riding on this tax initiative. Fingers crossed!

[AndyPok1]

I mean, I'm all for ideas, but I don't believe there's space for a baseball diamond inside or outside of CWS.

[JFW657]

Just now, AndyPok1 said:

I mean, I'm all for ideas, but I don't believe there's space for a baseball diamond inside or outside of CWS.

I was just looking at aerials of CWS and some of the combo fields because I wasn't sure about that either.

I noticed that most combo fields are laid out a bit wider with more space between the sideline stands, but I think there's enough room for a diamond in CWS.

It would be a long way to the left field wall, but they could do a temporary wall that could come down after each game or after the season.

[Serg2244]

How about this for SaG.

 

Edited January 5, 2020 by Serg2244
wrong image

[JFW657]

2 hours ago, Serg2244 said:

How about this for SaG.

 

I was thinking about the soccer stadium too.

If that's close to scale it might work.

Right field looks a tad shallow, though.

But do the seasons overlap and if so, could the field be converted back and forth between baseball and soccer games?