Brightline and Walt Disney Co. officials have confirmed advanced talks about a station on or near theme-park property as part of a route to Tampa proposed by the passenger-rail system being renamed as Virgin Trains USA.
Michael Cegelis, Virgin’s executive vice president for infrastructure, told local road officials recently that his company’s discussions with Disney are in a “rather advanced state now.”
Disney officials responded with a statement saying, “As the top vacation destination and largest single-site employer in the United States, Walt Disney World Resort is an obvious choice for a rail station between Orlando International Airport and Tampa.”
“While we have not yet made any definitive commitment, we have mutually agreed to more formally explore developing a train station on our property,” Disney officials said in their statement.
Virgin Trains is at work on a $4 billion, 160-mile expansion from West Palm Beach to Orlando International Airport. The privately financed project includes new rail corridor alongside State Road 528 from the airport to an existing track system that spans Brevard County to South Florida and is being revamped.
Virgin’s stations in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach are hubs for a mix of real-estate development. However, the station at the Orlando airport is only for transportation, connecting to a terminal under construction and possible rail systems in the future.
Three more South Florida stations are slated to open late next year in Aventura, PortMiami and Boca Raton, while stations are under consideration for the Space Coast area of Brevard County and Treasure Coast region of Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin counties.
Virgin officials originally said the Miami-to-Orlando trip would take three hours. The new stations will not add significant time to that the trip, they said.
Company officials said they have not determined whether an Orlando-to-Tampa station at or near Disney would serve only transportation needs or also be tied to real-estate development.
“When you look at the millions of out-of-state visitors traveling to Florida, as well as the 21 million residents of the state, providing a car-free option would be a big win,” said Ben ?Porritt, a Virgin senior vice president.
For a route of 80 miles from Orlando’s airport to a station in Tampa, Virgin Trains is negotiating to lease space and right-of-way from the Central Florida Expressway Authority, the Florida Department of Transportation and Orlando Utilities Commission.
Those complex negotiations “are taking a little bit longer than we would like them to take but we are going to get it right and they are in process now,” Cegelis said.
Virgin previously has said the company plans to connect the Tampa extension with the south Orange County Meadow Woods Station of Central Florida’s commuter SunRail.
From Orange County to Tampa, much of the track would follow the median of Interstate 4. A station in Lakeland also has been under consideration.
kspear@orlandosentinel.com
