ORLANDO, Fla. — With exactly one week left until the new year, many are already thinking ahead to the new opportunities that lie in the future.

Among those new opportunities are plans for a new mixed-use sports and entertainment district in downtown Orlando.

It’s a project that got the green light from city leaders earlier this year and has the owner of a barber shop in Parramore ready for change.

What You Need To Know

  • A new mixed-use sports and entertainment district, called the Westcourt Orlando project, is planned for downtown Orlando

  • The city of Orlando backed the mixed-use development that will sit adjacent to the Kia Center back in April

  • One Parramore business owner believes the project will bring positive change to the community

  • Westcourt Orlando is expected to be completed by early 2027

Excitement isn’t usually what you’d expect a business owner to be feeling when it comes to new development in their neighborhood.

But the owner of a barber shop in Parramore says he’s ready for the change.

J. Henry has been cutting the hair of those in his neighborhood since 1991.

From kids to seniors in the Parramore area, he says he wouldn’t do this job anywhere else. 

That’s why when he heard the news earlier this year about a new mixed-use sports and entertainment district — named Westcourt, which will be adjacent to the Kia Center — he was filled with joy.

“When you have people that have an opportunity to change their financial condition from a job perspective going forward, it brings new people to the community, it brings new ideas, new opportunities,” Henry said.

But Henry says it wasn’t always that way, especially before the construction of the Inter & Co. soccer stadium that faces his shop.

“It was really pretty much an abandoned warehouse and the rest of the property was pretty much vacant,” he said.

But he believes the Westcourt Orlando project, which will include a 261 room hotel, 265 residential units, office space and even a live venue with a 3,500 person capacity, will also help give Parramore a better reputation — because, he said, it’s the people that make the neighborhood special. 

“I don’t know a better place to be, because everybody in the neighborhood, they know who they are, and i like getting with real people and that’s very important to me,” Henry said.

Also important to him is making sure his community embraces the change that’s about to come. 

“I want to see the people in the neighborhood reap some of the benefits of the opportunities going forward," Henry said. "But along with reaping the benefits, you gotta play your role. You can’t stay on the sideline expecting for the score to change."

If all goes according to plan, the Westcourt Orlando project is expected to be complete by early 2027.