Calling Orlando Home

Adjacent condo-hotels to target show managers and exhibitors at OCCC

By Rachelle Crum -- Tradeshow Week, 4/25/2005

If you spend so much time at Orlando's Orange County Convention Center that you think you should move a bed, phone line and family photo into the show management office, the Village of Imagine will shortly rescue you.

The 2 million square foot convention center is about to get 1,000 condominium-hotel units in the undeveloped 29-acre plot across Universal Boulevard from its north entrance.

Village of Imagine, an Old Florida-themed, multi-use project, will include two high-end condominium hotels and 50,000 sq. ft. of restaurant and retail space. The property will be the first condo-hotel option within walking distance of the center.

Vancouver, British Columbia-based Intrawest, the adventure travel and resort company that's developing the project, bought the land last year for $19.6 million. Intrawest plans to start construction this fall.

One of the condo-hotels will open in January 2008 — in time for the OCCC's busiest tradeshow month. With 40,000 sq. ft. of restaurant-retail space, it will be modeled after the Breakers resort in Palm Beach, Fla. The opening date of the second property, to be styled after the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Fla., is yet to be determined. Intrawest hopes to have the separate hotels eventually flagged by one or more major hotel chains.

Gregg Anderson, vice president of acquisitions for Intrawest's Placemaking development division, wants to pre-sell up to 250 condos before the shovel hits the ground. He's targeting show management firms, exhibiting companies and vacationing families. The publicly traded firm also expects a large portion of the condo owners to rent their units to show participants looking for OCCC-adjacent accommodations.

"It's a perfect site for us. This is going to appeal to a lot of different audiences," Anderson said, because of the "shortage of high-end accommodations within walking distance of the convention center."

Intrawest is primarily targeting customers "who are going to come here year after year. You'd love to keep it in your company," Anderson said. Plus, he added, "You could actually do a breakout (meeting) in your condo."

The firm has interests in more than a dozen U.S. and European resort properties, and is best-known for Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia, Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort near Destin, Fla., and the 2-year-old MonteLago Village on Lake Las Vegas. It is working closely with the OCCC in designing room elements. "They know what their attendees are looking for," Anderson added.

Kathie Canning, deputy general manager of the OCCC, said she appreciates the opportunity to be involved in the new development. "They are interested in what we think of the quality of the project."

The village will help alleviate the hotel room obstacle for the 2 million-plus sq. ft. center, Canning said. Even though there are 112,000-plus hotel rooms in Greater Orlando, "We are very often challenged with getting enough convention-quantity and -quality hotels in close proximity to the convention center."

News of Village of Imagine makes Karin Davidson, Laguna Coast Publishing tradeshow manager for the Performance Racing Industry Trade Show, want to be airborne.

"I think I'm doing back-flips as you're telling me this. I'm elated," she said, in thinking about her Tradeshow Week 200 show's Dec. 4–6, 2008, dates and how she is "in great need of hotel rooms near the convention center."

Since she moved the annual show from the Indiana Convention Center & RCA Dome in Indianapolis to Orlando this year, she now visits the OCCC frequently and the apartment-like option is appealing. "That'd be smart to buy one," she said. "If we're there five, six, seven times a year, why not?"

Jamie Romano, tradeshow logistics manager for the Produce Marketing Assn. Fresh Summit Intl. Convention & Exposition said that she "would obviously look into (the Village). If there's a property close to the center, we always consider it."

And the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau is going to "sell the heck out of it," said bureau President Bill Peeper. "The strategic position of the property is very exciting to us."

Intrawest knows the Orlando bureau is "very eager to get the final go-ahead to begin including them in our housing packages," he said, adding: "That thing's gonna look like, taste like, walk like a hotel."

Peeper noted that Orlando's timeshare units are becoming increasingly popular with exhibitors. "We're starting to see an increased interest in that kind of product. Some (timeshares) are now included in room blocks."