It has been an exciting year. Projects that were only dreams a few years ago are now under construction or have recently been completed. The real exciting part of this latest round of development is the variety of projects. What I wanted to do is take a few moments to look further into downtown's future and see how we keep the momentum going. I don't need to tell all of you in this room that downtown's economic health is not only important to you and the City of Orlando but the entire Central Florida region as well.
Downtown has the highest concentration of employment and office space in the region.
We have the region's most attractive public space - Lake Eola Park. In short, downtown's economic strength is an essential element to the region's vitality and quality of life. It is in the regional arena that we must focus, because that is where the dialogue is going to take place when allocating the area's resources. The key to these initiatives is to insure physical connections to downtown. How these issues are resolved, regardless of the solution, will have a dramatic impact on downtown.