New development plan for International Drive

International Drive is already hopping, but can you imagine I-Drive being 10 times busier and more dense than it already is?  Planners certainly can, in the form of the I-Drive 2040 Vision, just 24 years in our future.

"I would love to say that, when I leave office in 2-and-a-half years, there will be something there.  I am not sure that's realistic, but hopefully we will have a firm plan and be headed in that direction very soon," said Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs.

Like a activity hall outside the Convention Center and plenty of apartments and new hotels in and around I-Drive, not what you see there today. 

"It's just gorgeous, the landscaping, but what it lacks is the feeling that you want to get out of your car and you want to walk. You want to walk to the next place, and the next place, stop into this little store, and grab a coffee over here," Jacobs said.  "It lacks that, because everything is so spread out."

People are walking it today or maybe taking the trolley, but mostly they're stuck in traffic.  How can the area grow 10 times what it is now and where are you going to fit all those cars and people?

"Preferably it will be, in my opinion, it would be a light rail type of system, a way that people can conveniently get on a rail, take it to their next destination a quarter-of-a-mile, half-mile, two miles down the road," said Jacobs.

Transformation on I-Drive is already under way.  The next big change will be the arrival of the Skyplex, coming soon.