Jun. 18--At one time, plans for Orange County's expanding convention center included a quarter-mile bridge with a moving sidewalk that would carry visitors in air-conditioned comfort between the new center and the old. 

Now, the air-conditioning has vanished. So has the moving sidewalk. 
 

What's now planned is a 1,400-foot outdoor bridge that visitors will have to walk across -- while wearing convention suits and ties in Central Florida's sweltering summer heat.  But moving sidewalks aren't the only amenities that have been cast aside as center planners try to make ends meet on the $750 million project.  Though many a jaw dropped when county officials agreed to spend three-quarters of a billion dollars to double the center's size, it turns out that it's not enough.

Orange County Convention Center's  Phase V Expansion  The $748 million addition, which will be   attached to the existing center by a covered walkway, will provide an additional 1 million square feet of exhibit hall space bringing the total facility to 2.1 million square feet of exhibit hall space.

Fountains that were supposed to gush forth in front of the center have been nixed. 

Plans to install 245 security cameras throughout the facility have been significantly scaled back -- so that now only 130 cameras may watch out for the safety of the conventioneers who roam the center. 

And a landmark tower on the southwest corner of the building will exist only on blueprints that once described it as an "icon to be seen from surrounding roadways." 

The cuts have some observers aghast. 

"For $750 million, we shouldn't have to be cutting corners," said Linda Stewart, the chairwoman of the local watchdog group CountyWatch. "We shouldn't have to be cutting anything." 

Center officials say there's nothing scandalous about the changes to Central Florida's most expensive local-government project ever. 

Some of the changes -- such as removing the air-conditioning from the walkway -- simply make good financial sense, they say. 

"There are very few days in Orlando where the heat is so bad that it's discomforting -- as long as you are sheltered from the sun," said center director Tom Ackert. 

Other changes are needed to trim down what was once a wish list for the center and make practical decisions, Ackert said. 

Still, the significant number of changes has caught the attention of local watchdogs and county auditors. 

Doug Head, a member of CountyWatch and chairman of the county Democratic Party, has called for a formal investigation into the project. 

In a letter to County Chairman Rich Crotty, Head wrote that the staff's decision to make major changes in the center without running the matter by elected officials is tantamount to a builder removing an entire family room from plans for a house without contacting the family. 

"And along with it," Head wrote, "the home theater and the third-car garage." 

Crotty said last week that he had not decided whether to order an audit. 

But County Comptroller Martha Haynie, the county's top financial watchdog, is also wondering whether an audit is due. Haynie recently attended a meeting of the group that is overseeing the massive construction project to warn them about making changes that might keep the project within budget now -- but could cost taxpayers in the long run. 

Take the walkways, for example. 

A list of "value engineering" savings from the center's construction company, Clark Construction, suggests that the moving walkways be removed -- but then remarks that plans would "allow for future installation." 

"That is not value engineering," Haynie said. "Value engineering means you discover cheaper ways to accomplish the same thing. It doesn't mean you move half of the project out until later and pay for it then. That's very different." 

As for the walkway's loss of air conditioning, Ackert said it would be similar to the open-air bridge at Universal Studios. 

Stewart, however, scoffed at that comparison. "People at Universal wear shorts and T-shirts," she said. "People at the convention center wear suits and carry equipment." 

Ackert and center construction officials say the project is on time and within budget. But critics wonder how that is possible. 

There have been numerous problems. 

Sinkholes that developed near the north side of the project, for instance, required more than $3 million worth of repairs. And retention ponds with potential environmental problems had to be moved -- at a cost of nearly $2 million. 

Then there are all of the smaller cost overruns -- such as plan revisions and muck problems on the site -- associated with the construction of the 3-million-square-feet building. All told, more than $8 million worth of overruns have already occurred. 

And projections show another $4 million worth of overruns already expected. One example is the $595,000 that county commissioners will be asked Tuesday to pay the firm that is monitoring the construction. 

Yet, at the beginning of every meeting of the project's oversight committee, the construction team and county managers open with the same line: The construction is "on time and within budget." 

Mostly, center officials point to the project's $30 million contingency budget as a safety net. But more than a third of that has already been spent -- or is scheduled to be. 

"This report is too good," said committee chairman Jim Brown, an architect, before last week's meeting ended. "I just want to know if there's something big and bad and nasty about to happen." 

Ackert and the county's project manager, John Morris, say nothing bad is looming. But they say that more cuts may be coming -- even though they are not expected to reduce the cost of the project or save taxpayers money. 

"It's like if my wife and I design a house," Ackert said. "If we're diligent owners and cost conscious, we make decisions to leave some things out." 

The money for the center is coming from the county's $120-million-a-year pot of hotel taxes. 

And while state law forbids those taxes from being spent on projects that generally benefit local residents, such as roads and schools, the money is highly sought after. Most notably, the Orlando Magic want some ofthe money for a new arena; and local arts and cultural groups are expecting several million dollars each year for museums and the like. 

"That's when it hits your pocketbook," Stewart said, explaining why all residents should be carefully watching the convention center project. "Even though it doesn't seem like it affects you now, it could." 

Some of the center's oversight committee members, such as CNL Group executive Jay Berlinsky and Universal Studios creative director Marc Watson, agree with Haynie's concerns. Both have urged staffers to make distinctions between permanent cost-cutting and temporary plans that could cost the public more money in the future. 

But both stressed last week that they believe residents will get a superior product when the center opens in May 2003. "I believe that we are going to deliver a project that people expect," Berlinsky said. 

And that will be nothing short of the Taj Mahal of convention centers. 

That's because the county's expansion is among the most expensive -- in total cost and per square foot -- in the country. 

Las Vegas, for instance, is in the midst of adding a similar amount of exhibit space to its center for $150 million. Local officials, however, described that center -- and price -- as too cheap to satisfy the higher tastes of Orlando leaders and convention customers. Ackert called any comparison "invalid." 

Of Orange County's $750 million, about $230 million is being spent on land, site preparation and roads around the center. 

That leaves $520 million for preparing and constructing the building itself. That equates to more than $186 per square foot -- more than the average cost of Class A office space, the fanciest there is, in downtown Orlando. 

At that price, observers say, residents deserve to know how every penny is being spent. 

"Orange County does not have a good track record when it comes to large construction projects," Stewart said. 

The county's $200 million courthouse, which opened in 1999, was about $14 million over budget. And when the city- and county-funded arena -- now the TD Waterhouse Centre -- opened in 1989, its $110 million price tag was triple the original estimate. 

Ackert stressed that the first phases of the convention center opened on time and within budget -- just as this one is expected to. 

But with so much money on the line, many observers want more than promises. "We can always hope that they get better," Stewart said. "But I'd like to see an audit." 

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(c) 2001. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.