Travel + Leisure Co. has been approved for incentives that will bring its global headquarters from Orlando’s tourism corridor to downtown.

The Orlando-based timeshare/vacation ownership giant (NYSE: TNL) was approved by the Orlando City Council on May 13. The company will move 908 jobs and create another 102 positions over five years, locating its offices at 501 W. Church St. from its current office on Sea Harbor Drive where its lease is expiring in 2025.

Commissioner Jim Gray abstained from voting because Michael Phipps and Colin Morrison with CBRE — the firm where Gray serves as Orlando office leader — handled the leasing for the building.

Travel + Leisure will lease the entire 182,461-square-foot building, Kim Marshall, chief human resources officer for Travel + Leisure, told Orlando Business Journal. The company is targeting late 2025 or early 2026 for the move, depending on factors like buildout.

Marshall added that the company originally looked in south Orlando, but the Orlando Economic Partnership and city of Orlando staff encouraged the company to consider downtown as an option. “After we got to talking to everyone and saying, ‘hey maybe this should be a possibility,’ gave it some thought and said with these incentives being offered, they would offset the cost of the move and decided that was the way to go.”

The city will provide up to $2.27 million through the targeted international headquarters relocation incentive and $4.04 million through the community redevelopment agency’s High Wage/High Value Job Creation Program. Incentives require the jobs to be created and maintained for full payout, with the jobs paying a median annual salary of $109,136, or 100% of the national median wage of $45,713.

The proposed relocation to Parramore would place Travel + Leisure across the street from the Orlando Magic’s proposed Westcourt $500 million, 900,000-square-foot development. The project, which also is across from the Kia Center, is expected to kick off construction by the end of this year and debut its initial phase in 2026.

“There’s lot of investment, a lot of activity spurring not just in the downtown corridor but the heart of the Parramore community,” David Barilla, executive director of the city’s downtown development board and community redevelopment agency, said during the meeting. He added that the company will submit a community action plan by March 2025 tied to what partnerships and programs it will pursue for youths in Parramore.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer told Orlando Business Journal the closest example in terms of a large employer moving downtown is Redwood City, California-based Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: EA), which now has 930 employees at its 175,000-square-foot office in the Creative Village it moved into in 2022. EA was awarded incentives to move its regional offices from Maitland in 2019.

“It’s one of those things where we are creating momentum or a catalyst toward more development, because when they see the political will to move the Westcourt forward, then other developers are willing to look at things,”

Dyer said he envisions vacant property near Inter&Co Stadium owned by the Wilf family as property that could be developed in the long-term future, part of the development momentum of a “Sports and Entertainment District” which would stretch on Church Street from Camping World Stadium to Dr. Phillips Center for Performing Arts.

Travel + Leisure, with more than 2,200 workers and $3.75 billion in annual revenue, is among Central Florida’s largest employers.

Sign up here for our free morning and afternoon daily newsletters. And be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter) and Instagram.