Setting the pace: New Disney contract raises wages to $15 an hour

SPORTS / ENTERTAINMENT

• Feld Entertainment agreed to stage the Monster Jam World Finals, the marquee monster-truck event, at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium in 2019 and 2020. Orange County committed $1.7 million in hotel taxes to help subsidize the events.
• Orlando Magic owner and Amway co-founder Rich DeVos died at age 92.

RETAIL

• Credit card numbers for 567,000 customers of Darden Restaurants’ Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen may have been stolen in a cyberattack. The company says the breach occurred on a now-permanently disabled legacy payment system at Cheddar’s, which Darden acquired last year, and that systems at its other restaurants, including Olive Garden, were not affected.
• Wally’s Mills Avenue Liquors, Central Florida’s best-known dive bar, closed after more than 60 years.

TOURISM

• Universal Orlando opened a 600- room Aventura Hotel.
• Carnival’s largest ship, a 5,286-passenger vessel set to begin sailing in 2020, will be based at Port Canaveral.
• Albany, N.Y.-based BBL Hospitality is building a five-story, 118- room Hyatt Place Hotel near Kennedy Space Center that will feature a top-floor launch-viewing lounge.

TRANSPORTATION

• Airline WOW will begin seasonal flights between Orlando International Airport and Iceland.
• The Central Florida Expressway Authority is considering a five-mile toll road that would link U.S. 27 in south Lake County with the agency’s State Road 429 expressway in west Orange County.
• The Apopka City Commission voted to remove all red-light cameras in the city.
• Frontier Airlines will add non-stop flights from Orlando International Airport to Burlington, Vt.; Little Rock, Ark.; Louisville, Ky., and Portsmouth, N.H. Frontier has now passed Southwest Airlines as the carrier with the most Orlando routes in its network.

Orlando Office Market (classes A and B, central business district, 2nd quarter)

• Total Inventory: 7,111,189 square feet
• Vacancy: 10.34%
• Lease Rate: $25.76 per square foot
• Notable: The Orlando office market has 522,000 square feet under construction.

Orlando Industrial Market

• Total Inventory: 110,959,355 square feet
• Vacancy: 5.35%
• Lease Rate: $6.74 per square foot
• Notable: Rental rates increased 6.8% over the previous 12 months.

Source: Avison Young

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Tags: Central, Travel & Tourism