Business owners, Orange County officials and Duke Energy are exploring a multi-million-dollar effort to bury overhead utility lines along a key stretch of North International Drive. The effort targets the half-mile corridor from Sand Lake Road to Carrier Drive, which is in unincorporated Orange County. Beyond Carrier, within Orlando city limits, Florida Power Corp. buried and paid $8 million for undergrounding the lines about 25 years ago.
Local stakeholders are now exploring whether a similar upgrade can be achieved outside Orlando city limits.
On April 15, the I-Drive Resort Area Chamber of Commerce gathered with these stakeholders in a meeting room at CoCo Key Water Resort for a joint discussion to hash out the logistical and financial hurdles of the massive undergrounding initiative.
The effort faces a key deadline. Duke Energy is planning significant grid-strengthening upgrades in the area and gave stakeholders roughly 180 days to determine whether they can pursue an undergrounding solution before the utility moves forward with a new overhead system. The 180 days end in October.
Because Duke says the most economical way to build electrical infrastructure in Florida is overhead, the company’s default plan is to replace the aging lines with new overhead infrastructure. If that happens, Duke representatives said, the cost of burying the lines later could triple.
“There’s an opportunity to get this done now to avoid higher costs later, and that’s the key to all this,” Maria Triscari, president and CEO of the chamber, told GrowthSpotter.
For Triscari, the project is about elevating this specific section of North International Drive, which happens to be the original, oldest portion of the tourist corridor.
“Basically, the goal is to create a cohesive look across the International Drive resort area,” Triscari said on June 3. “It’s only right that we do everything we can to make that happen.”
Right now, the section of the tourism district in the spotlight is somewhat dilapidated, with empty retail bays in older strip malls and vacant former ticket offices interdispersed between operational national brand outposts like IHOP, McDonald’s, Chuck E. Cheese, Burger King and others. A few hotels, local restaurants and underutilized parking lots fill out what’s left. It’s certainly a shadow of its former self.
Business owners expressed support for the proposal. Megan Dowdy of Dowdy Properties highlighted the historical context of the area’s aging infrastructure.
“When my father developed these properties 45 years ago, undergrounding power was not an option,” she said during the meeting. “In decades since, this has become the forgotten section of International Drive.”
Dowdy told GrowthSpotter in a more recent interview the project is not just about burying power lines.
“The undergrounding of the power on the historic section of International Drive is the first of many steps,” she said. “This is just the first step in bringing it to where it should be, where it should have been, and make it a cohesive experience for all of our visitors and residents.”
Josh Wallack, CEO of Wallack Holdings, whose company owns Mango’s Tropical Cafe and Kali Ultra Lounge on I-Drive, said next steps after the undergrounding should include county policies that encourage private investment.
“We need to give property tax abatements for people who are willing to invest $50 million or more,” Wallack told GrowthSpotter on June 5. “The more you invest, the longer your taxes are abated.”
Tom Harb, founder and president of Phoenicia Development, which owns iFly Indoor Skydiving, ICEBAR Orlando and other businesses on International Drive, said undergrounding utilities would not only improve reliability during storms but also help modernize the appearance of the corridor.
“It looks like a junk yard over there sometimes, all these lines and everything,” Harb told GrowthSpotter.
In his view, removing utility poles could create room for wider sidewalks, additional landscaping and other improvements that would help the northern section of International Drive better match the more polished appearance found closer to the Orange County Convention Center.
“It will bring more businesses,” Harb said.
Let’s talk about the money
Achieving this vision will require overcoming substantial financial hurdles. During the April meeting, James Robinson, an account executive with Duke Energy, presented a non-binding estimate of $18.7 million. However, as he clarified, that figure only covers Duke’s specific portion of the work, including transformers, ground installation, labor and contingencies.
Because the effort is categorized as a customer-requested project, it must be funded by the requesting party, in this case, Orange County and the property owners. The true total is expected to be significantly higher. County officials at the meeting noted that when factoring in the cost of burying neighboring utility lines that share the poles, trenching conduit, and retrofitting individual properties’ private meters, the total investment will likely double, potentially reaching $40 million or more.
Furthermore, the project’s scope is larger than some property owners initially anticipated. To maintain peak reliability and storm resilience, Robinson explained that the undergrounding cannot be limited strictly to North I-Drive. The system must tie directly back to the Sand Lake substation on Universal Boulevard, making the project effectively all-or-nothing to prevent the new underground grid from relying on vulnerable overhead lines.
Expanding the scope raised concerns for some business owners.
Dowdy said she worries the expanded scope could make the project more expensive, more complicated and harder to secure approval for, ultimately reducing the likelihood that the undergrounding effort moves forward.
“It’s now become a much bigger project, which makes it less likely it will happen,” she said.
The case for space
Further, to make the underground grid a reality, Duke Energy will require property owners to grant easements on their valuable commercial land.
Duke requires 20×20-foot spaces for switchgears and 10×10-foot spaces for transformers. These ground-level boxes must be accessible to utility workers 24 hours a day for maintenance and emergency repairs. If the community cannot secure easements from property owners along the route, Robinson noted that the undergrounding project cannot proceed.
Several business owners said they would do what it takes to secure easements from all owners along the strip.
What happens next?
Duke says it needs commitment from the county and stakeholders within 180 days of the meeting about whether they want to seriously pursue undergrounding. That would presumably halt Duke from proceeding with new overhead infrastructure. Then, Orange County must approve a non-binding agreement and ultimately fund an $8,500 engineering study to secure a binding, detailed estimate from Duke Energy, a process that alone could take up to nine months. Upon completion of the study, likely in 2027, county officials and participating property owners would be in a position to determine whether they are willing to fund the project and move forward with undergrounding.
Orange County Spokeswoman Amanda Duke said the county is still gathering information and conducting a feasibility assessment. “At this time, no determination has been made regarding the viability of the proposal,” she said. “The next step is to complete the feasibility analysis and determine whether there is a practical path forward to advance the project.”
The county has demonstrated support for improving International Drive at the Sand Lake intersection, having budgeted for and solicited bids for a pedestrian bridge that it describes as a “signature gateway.” Duke Energy declined to answer additional questions about the status of the project.
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