May 05--Back when International Drive was a short dead end and Orange County's giant convention center was just a dream, U.S. Highway 192 in Osceola County was Walt Disney World's doorstep, the road most Disney-bound tourists cruised in search of an affordable motel and a meal.

But for more than a decade now, what was once the region's main tourist strip has been more like Disney World's doormat. Hammered by recessions and hurricanes, some motels double as homeless shelters; empty restaurants and shops rot in place; and small-time attractions barely cling to life.

Meanwhile, more and more tourists looking for affordable lodging are drawn instead to the growing number of "value-priced" hotel rooms on Disney property.

Osceola now wants to bring back U.S. 192's glory days with what may be its most-ambitious rescue attempt yet for the 15-mile-long tourism corridor, which has been the county's major source of jobs and revenue since Disney came to town more than four decades ago.

"There's a lot of joking about, 'You just need to bulldoze the place and start all over,' " said Jeffrey Jones, the county's "smart-growth" director. "If a developer owned the corridor, that's probably what he'd do."

Determined to revive a district once known as the "Kissimmee-St. Cloud Resort Area," the county is considering potentially drastic surgery on 192: amputating one section to save the other two from a spreading infection.

The county thinks the easternmost part of the corridor, where many motels are now filled with long-term residents instead of theme-park visitors, should be rezoned to allow nontourism types of development. But some still hope visitors will return.

"We're supposed to be [for] tourists. We don't want locals," said Sam Vaidya, of the 18-room Victoria Inn Motel, which is more than 30 years old. "That's the goal we have, but [at the moment] there's no other option."

Difficult decade

The numbers show that something has to be done to draw more vacationers back to the tourist strip.

According to county figures, the tourism corridor's taxable value has fallen more than 24 percent in the past decade. An area that was once half the county's tax base now constitutes just a quarter of the total.

Osceola has hired a consultant to help businesses and residents create a new vision for 192. Should it look and feel like Las Vegas Boulevard, in the nation's casino capital? Biscayne Boulevard in Miami? Or what about Orlando's International Drive, which has grown from a stub off Sand Lake Road into the region's undisputed king of tourism?

Before the Great Recession, Osceola spent about two decades beautifying U.S. 192 and making it safer for motorists and pedestrians. That $30 million project, paid for by the corridor's businesses and property owners, resulted in the ubiquitous purple light poles, extra-wide sidewalks, palm trees and mile markers that still line the road today.

In the months after the 2001 terrorist attacks, business was so bad for Central Florida tourism that even Disney World temporarily closed blocks of hotel rooms; along U.S. 192, the average hotel was able to fill only four of every 10 rooms each night. In 2004, when three hurricanes tore through the region just weeks apart, all three dozen members of the Kissimmee Hotel Motel Association reported some kind of damage. And during the depths of the 2007-09 recession, the strip's hotels struggled to fill a third of their rooms -- even as some charged less than $30 a night.

The situation has improved since the last recession, but the area's performance still lags that the market overall. While Orlando hotels generally now fill almost seven of every 10 rooms on average and charge an average of $97 a night, the 192 corridor and nearby resorts now fill roughly six of every 10 rooms and charge $63 to $76 a night.

Lesson in contrasts

Hector Lizasuain, the county employee in charge of the corridor's latest makeover, points out the strip's problems and opportunities as he drives along west U.S. 192.

There's the time share on Lake Cecile, abandoned by its owners years ago. The eyesore was bought last year by a Montreal developer who plans to renovate it, but just down the road is a hotel that, although still open, is filled with locals who pay weekly rates and last year alone generated more than 400 calls to law enforcement.

Farther on still is an old camera shop that recently rebuilt its run-down facade -- a big improvement, Lizasuain says. And nearby is the strip's new, 11-story Embassy Suites, with 300 rooms. But several miles west of that is a former Hyatt hotel complex, now closed, with 704 rooms that slowly deteriorated while awaiting redevelopment.

The county wants to eliminate such sharp contrasts, and to deal with the problem, it has created the W192 Development Authority.

That group of seven local business representatives -- four appointed by county commissioners, two by local tourism groups and one by Disney World's private government -- has the power to do everything from levy special taxes to acquire run-down properties through the county's power of eminent domain.

The group's goal: have a master plan for 192 and its businesses ready to go by August.

"There's a lot of things in the works. A lot of properties are changing hands," said Lizasuain, who advises the authority. "... This is the most momentum I've ever seen in this corridor in my 10 years here."

3 segments, 3 strategies

The county's strategy involves dividing the 15-mile-long U.S. 192 corridor -- which stretches from the Kissimmee city line at the east end to the Osceola County line west of Disney World's southern entrance -- into three segments that could each be redeveloped differently, depending on their tourism potential:

--Segment 1, the westernmost section, includes World Drive, Disney's main roadway. This 7.5-mile stretch has the largest amount of undeveloped acreage, though it is already home to a couple of giant time-share resorts, several chain hotels and a growing number of national-brand restaurants and retailers. For business owners in this relatively "new" part of the corridor, the key is keeping blight in the two other segments from creeping in.

--Segment 2, the middle section, stretches for 4 miles from I-4 to State Road 535. In addition to budget hotels, it includes attractions such as Old Town and FunSpot, as well as kitschy souvenir stores such as Eli's Orange World. The county expects this area to remain focused on tourism, though it suffers from vacant buildings and a cacophony of pole-mounted commercial signs that clutter the skyline.

--Segment 3, the easternmost section, is closest to downtown Kissimmee and home to more than a dozen mom-and-pop motels as well as strip malls and a few attractions, including Medieval Times dinner theater and Capone's Dinner & Show. Many of the area's motels are now filled with long-term residents renting by the week, and abandoned properties abound.

Of the three areas, Segment 3 is the most sensitive part of the county's rescue effort. Its business properties tend to be older and smaller than those in the other two zones, and so less attractive for redevelopment. Although some businesses in the area would argue otherwise, it is an area "whose future is unlikely to be associated with the tourism industry," according to a blunt assessment prepared last year by a county advisory committee.

In light of that assessment, the county has suggested changing that stretch of U.S. 192 from tourism commercial to mixed use, which would allow residential development. The county also hopes to start a program that could allow the motels that no longer attract tourists to develop transitional-living quarters for local residents.

Weighing options

Bruce Meighen of Logan Simpson Design Inc. is the consultant hired by Osceola for $198,000 to help it divine a vision for each of the three segments. He's already floated several proposals:

--"Paradise 192," playing off the area's proximity to Disney.

--"Entertainment 192," emphasizing night life and attractions -- including casino gambling, should the state ever allow such gaming in Florida to expand.

--"Destination 192," highlighting the county's natural resources and its century-and-a-half association with cattle ranching.

Any changes could be financed with money paid by businesses in the corridor. One option would be to use the corridor's existing Community Development Agency in a way that, if property values rise as a result of the improvements, the added revenue could be tapped. Another option: Businesses along the strip could agree to tax themselves with a special assessment.

Mary Ellen Kerber, who handles leasing for the successful Formosa Gardens shopping plaza in Segment 1, said she fully supports the redevelopment.

"We started to see the issues coming west" from the strip's two other segments, she said. "We thought it was very important to get involved."

Mark Miller, chairman of the W192 Redevelopment Authority and founder of the Arabian Nights dinner show, doesn't dismiss the idea of thinking big. But as a veteran of previous efforts to revive the tourism corridor, he wants any master plan to reaffirm the strip's reason for existing in the first place -- Disney World -- and to take into account all that the county has already done to improve U.S. 192.

"It seems to me that we have to build on what we have and not completely start over again," he said. "What makes this business go is Disney. Period."

Codes crackdown

So far, the main tool of the latest redevelopment has been building-code enforcement.

The county stepped up its enforcement activities last fall, issuing 205 violations in one 45-day span. The crackdown had an immediate effect: 195 of the violations were soon corrected, as property owners painted the rusty poles on fast-food signs and remodeled the facades of run-down buildings.

Alice Joossens, who delivers Meals on Wheels to residents now living along the strip, has noticed the improvement.

"I've seen so many businesses really clean up," Joossens said. "I can certainly see the effect."

Still, some business owners are wary of what may lie ahead. They say they are still reeling from the assessments they paid to finance the $30 million beautification project in the late 1990s and early 2000s -- and from the slump in business they experienced during the highway's long reconstruction. And some, especially those farthest from Disney, are underwhelmed by the results of that previous redevelopment.

"They said the 192 beautification would bring the business. In fact, the 192 beautification did not bring the business -- the beautification ruined the business," said Jitu Patel, owner of the Record Parkside Inn & Suites. During the road's reconstruction, he said, "I had 57 rooms, [but] I used to have one or two rooms [rented] a night."

Lizasuain, the county project manager, hopes the latest redevelopment will raise property values and give the strip's aging mom-and-pop hotels an exit strategy. He wants the county to help such businesses sell their properties -- many of which are built on small or oddly shaped parcels -- by packaging contiguous sites so they are larger and more attractive to developers and investors.

He admits, however, that he's not sure how much of the tourist strip can be made whole again.

"We're not going to make 100 percent of the people happy, I know that," he said. "It took 30 years to get here. We're hoping to turn it around in three or four."

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