WINTER PARK, Fla. — A vote by Orange County commissioners will pave the way for some upgrades for a handful of the county’s most frequented arts and cultural organizations. 

What You Need To Know

  • Orange County recently voted to approve $75 million for 11 projects over the next five years as part of excess tourist development tax dollars

  • The funding will pave the way for some upgrades to a handful of the county’s most frequented arts and cultural organizations

  • Two Winter Park arts establishments will benefit from millions of dollars in funding that will pay for needed renovations

  • Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings says the goal with these capital projects is to expand tourism in his county

On Tuesday, Oct. 29, the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) voted to use more than $75 million in Tourist Development Tax or TDT dollars to help improve nearly a dozen of those establishments.

Among those to benefit from the funding are two Winter Park staples: the Rollins Museum of Art and the Winter Park Playhouse. Leaders from both organizations describe feeling thankful after obtaining millions of dollars in funding from the county.

To them, it even demonstrates Orange County’s faith in the community’s growing art scene. It’s a gift that Heather Alexander says will give her organization a permanent home once and for all.

She and her husband have been leasing the Winter Park Playhouse theater since opening it 22 years ago. When the owners of the building put the theater up for sale in March 2023, she feared the worst.

That is until a TDT came in.

“As luck would have it or fate, or serendipity, the Orange County TDT grant opportunity became available, and we were able to apply for that,” says Alexander, the executive director of the Winter Park Playhouse.

She says rent for non-profit organizations like hers makes up a huge portion of the annual budget.

But very soon, she won’t have to worry about that any longer.

From the TDT, $8 million will go to the City of Winter Park to buy and upgrade the theater.

With those funds, the city will purchase the building for more than $4 million and the remainder will go towards giving the playhouse an upgrade.

Amongst those upgrades, “cleaning up the building, doing small auditorium expansions so that we can serve more residents and visitors, making more lobby space for our patrons,” says Alexander.

Being partnered with the municipality means a guaranteed long-term vision and no longer having to worry about whether the landlords are going to raise the rent or renew the lease, she adds.

Alexander says the new priority now is improving the patron experience while preserving the intimate feel that the 22-year-old theater offers.

The theater currently sits 123 people but it could get up to 60 more seats through this funding.  

Just a few streets down, plans for a multi-purpose art museum are underway. 

The parking lot facing the Alfond Inn Hotel, on the corner of Interlachen and New England Avenues, will be the face of the new Rollins Museum of Art and home to thousands of art pieces from all over the world. 

“Our collection has grown so much in the last decade. We have more than 6,000 works of art of which we can only show a very small fraction here and at the Alfond Inn,” says former Bruce A. Beal Director of Rollins Museum of Art, Ena Heller.

Heller was proud to announce that Rollins got the full ask of the $10 million it requested from the county, bringing its $30-million arts campaign to a near close and opening a new chapter for the museum.

As one prepares to close.

“I am moving on at the end of this month, after 12 years I leave the museum in a really good place with the campaign finished, with the design approved for the new museum,” says Heller, who will begin her new role as the next director of the Boca Raton Museum of Art in February 2025.

Heller says she’s hopeful construction for the new museum will begin in 2025.

The new facility will contain three times the gallery space, an education center for K-12 students and two study rooms.