Here’s the Orlando Sentinel reporting on the Magic:
The Orlando Magic have reached a deal to buy one of the oldest homeless shelters in Orlando to make way for the team’s planned $200 million entertainment complex.
The Magic will pay the Orlando Union Rescue Mission $3 million for the property on Central Boulevard where its men’s shelter is located. The faith-based charity plans to use the Magic’s money — plus another $1.5 million it is now raising — to build a new, bigger shelter about two miles west.
“This works for us very well,” Mission CEO Allen Harden said Wednesday. “It’s a great location, a great piece of property. It expands our ability to reach other demographics and it’s close enough that our people downtown will be able to utilize it. We hope to be in the new building by the end of next year.”
The Orlando Magic already owns the rest of the block, after closing Tuesday on the purchase of two adjacent city-owned buildings: Orlando Police Headquarters, which is being relocated, and a parking garage. The property sits across Church Street from the Amway Center.
