Orange County commissioners voted 5-1 Tuesday to move toward demolishing the former county work-release center on West Kaley Street south of downtown Orlando, a building the city of Orlando once eyed as a homeless shelter, according to Orlando Sentinel and Orlando Weekly.
County staff has said the building isn’t worth spending more than $20 million on needed renovations, including a new roof, air conditioning, plumbing repairs, and electrical work to bring it up to code. Orlando Weekly put the renovation estimate at $20 million to $35 million. Demolition is estimated at about $400,000, with the parking lot left intact for the Supervisor of Elections office across the street.
Commissioner Nicole Wilson said, “There are major, major structural issues.” Commissioner Mike Scott said, “We can’t continue to spend money on something that we’re not using.” Commissioner Kelly Martinez-Semrad was the lone no vote.
Orlando dropped its shelter plan after pushback from nearby SoDo residents and opposition from Orlando Health. The county had granted the city the right to fund renovations in 2024 as part of a deal that also stopped a planned annexation of Deseret Ranches land.
Support Orlando Shelters, a group that has spent about two years trying to save the site, urged the county to keep the building for homeless services. Lee Perry, a lead volunteer with the group, said she was “very disappointed.”
The county has not set a demolition date, with officials saying they need to discuss the timeline further. Mayor Jerry Demings said there is “no plan at this point for what the future use of that land would be even with demolition.” But capital projects manager Sara Flynn-Kramer said the county is considering an eight-story building with a parking garage for the Tax Collector, Property Appraiser and Supervisor of Elections, and that selling the site is not the intention.
Demings deferred decisions on the site’s future to the next mayor, Tiffany Moore Russell, and the next Board of County Commissioners.
