After a 10-hour marathon session, the Orange County Commission passed the venues plan by a 5 to 2 vote.
The meeting was packed with supporters of the plan. In the end, the commission needed five votes and that was exactly what they got.
The two no votes on the project were from Commissioners Fred Brummer and Tiffany Moore.
"It is mission accomplished, vision fulfilled," said Orange County Mayor Richard Crotty to cheers from the crowd.
"We had a lot of compromises over the course of the past few days. It brought on commissioners who had been sitting on fence right up until the vote. There were areas of dispute, but that's nothing. The city and county negotiating team resolved about 90 points in dispute, so when it came to a head tonight, it was the result of a lot of hard work," Crotty said.
When it was all over, Crotty and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer high-fived each other and the celebrating began.
"This takes us to the next level as a community. There's no doubt about it, and it's based on cooperation. It's based on the city and the county working together," Crotty said.
The vote allows tourist taxes, downtown property taxes and private contributions to be used to fund a new $480 million arena, a new $389 performing arts center and to perform $175 million in upgrades to renovate the Citrus Bowl.
"The whole community came together and you saw that this evening with the number of people who were willing to come out here from 2 to 11 o'clock and wait to testify in favor of these venues," Dyer said.
"History will look back at this day in the same light as the day that Walt Disney decided to bring his theme park to Central Florida," said the Orlando Magic chief operating officer Alex Martins.
The new arena would be built at the corner of Church Street and Hughey Avenue.
The performing arts center would be built on Orange Avenue and South Street, across from Orlando City Hall.
The $425 million center would include three halls and is being boosted by a large number of private donations.
Backers have already raised nearly $80 million of the $110 million. The rest will come from property and tourist tax.
"We're going to Houston either this coming week or the week after. We will sit with the Hines people, who are our construction manager, to recast the numbers because we're a year late in starting this, so we've got to see where we are," said Jim Pugh of the Performing Arts Committee.
The center will host the Orlando Philharmonic, Orlando Ballet, Orlando Opera and Festival of Orchestras, as well as touring Broadway shows and musical and comedy acts.
The $175 million Citrus Bowl is the cheapest of the three venues, but has no private backers.
Renovations include replacing the lower bowl, adding 10 new suites, adding banquet space and increasing the number of bathrooms and concessions.
Of the three projects, this one could face the largest funding threat.
An amendment approved by commissioners could force a construction delay of a year or more if tourist-tax revenues do not steadily increase in the coming years.
Magic Johnson Supports Venues
Basketball legend Magic Johnson said he supports the billion-dollar venues project.
Before the vote, Johnson sent a letter to Dyer, Crotty and the county commissioners pledging to expand his company to Orlando.
In the letter he said:
"Should the City and County Commissions approve plans to build a new events center, downtown performing arts center, and renovate the Citrus Bowl in Orlando's urban core, we are prepared to make Orlando a top priority for our investment and development related capital."
Johnson’s group has promised Orlando $70 million to help with development in the Parramore neighborhood where two of the venues will be located.