Downtown’s next reinvention

Last updated on March 20, 2023

Downtown has experienced great growth, including doubling the amount of residents living in the urban core, the addition of world-class community venues and the development of an educational hub at Creative Village. Now is the time to look forward to downtown's next reinvention and ensure it has something for everyone and is exceptional each day. 

A key focus of these efforts is centered around ensuring the foundation of our downtown neighborhood is a safe place that offers a balance of uses that can serve all the needs of the residents, visitors, and businesses of today's downtown. 

In order to realize this goal, the City of Orlando has taken steps to better understand and improve quality of life issues and impediments to economic development in the downtown area. 

• Through the city's Accelerate Orlando initiative, we're making the most significant investment in our history to help care for those experiencing homelessness. By leveraging $58 million in federal funding we're going to work with the Christian Service Center, Salvation Army, and Coalition for the Homeless to help modernize their campuses, offer more wrap-around services, and grow daytime operations to help those experiencing homelessness get off the street. 
• Our Downtown Action Plan will support the continued growth of the downtown neighborhood through dozens upon dozens of "small" steps that add up to one big evolution of downtown as its own urban neighborhood. 
• Continuing the Downtown Ambassador Program that will continue to elevate the downtown Orlando experience for guests and serve as a direct, on-the-street connection seven days a week - proactively engaging in services and connecting our most vulnerable individuals to critical social services. 
• We are working to beautify the area with enhanced lighting, increasing tree canopy, pressure washing, and the removal of tree loops. 
• Working on changes to the city code aimed at enhancing safety and balancing the city's resources. 
• Updating city programs to better support our downtown businesses - like the facade program to encourage retention and relocation of businesses to downtown Orlando; and the SAFE Program, which provides an incentive for businesses and properties to purchase and install security measures that are intended to help deter crime and provide a safe environment for business owners, employees, and visitors. 
• Increasing the amount of officers in downtown Orlando to improve safety in the area. 

These immediate actions are one step towards a comprehensive look at safety measures within downtown and understanding what long-term impacts some of these could have at increasing safety for everyone in the area.