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Did Steinmetz Hall open in 2020, as Orange County said it would?

The Roadmap Reckoner · Steinmetz Hall, the second phase of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, downtown Orlando (Orange County), Florida · last checked 2026-11-03

Verdict	DELIVERED LATE, by 1 year and 14 days
Promiser	Orange County Government (Florida), in its news story of Nov. 10, 2016 on the Board of County Commissioners' vote of Nov. 1, 2016
Place	Steinmetz Hall, the second phase of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, downtown Orlando (Orange County), Florida
Promised	2020 ("expected"): "Phase II will break ground in 2017, with an expected grand opening in 2020." (Orange County, Nov. 10, 2016)
Delivered / status	Groundbreaking: Mar. 13, 2017 (reported by the county on Mar. 14, 2017). Grand opening ceremony: Jan. 14, 2022, 379 days after the end of 2020 (counted by the entry)
Last checked	2026-11-03

Verdict: DELIVERED LATE, by 1 year and 14 days. On November 10, 2016, Orange County's news story on its Board of County Commissioners' vote of November 1 said of the second phase of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, the acoustic Steinmetz Hall: "Phase II will break ground in 2017, with an expected grand opening in 2020." [C1, C2] The groundbreaking was kept: the county reported on March 14, 2017 that it was held "on Monday" [C4, C23], which was March 13 by the calendar (counted by this entry). The grand opening was not: the county says the official grand opening ceremony took place on Friday, January 14, 2022 [C21]. That is 379 days after the end of 2020, counted by this entry (December 31, 2020 to January 14, 2022).

Last checked: November 3, 2026.

The promise. The county's 2016 story: "Phase II will break ground in 2017, with an expected grand opening in 2020." [C1] The vote paid for it: "an additional $45 million of Tourist Development Tax (TDT) funding to complete the second and final stage" [C3].
The groundbreaking. The county's story, dated March 14, 2017 [C23], says the mayor joined community leaders "on Monday to celebrate the groundbreaking of the DPC’s historic Phase II construction" [C4]. It still gave the opening as "which has an expected grand opening of 2020" [C5].
The slip, in the record's own words. The center and the county gave a year, then a season, then a later year. The center's pages are read from Internet Archive copies, so a date given with a copy is the day it was copied, and the change happened sometime before it:
- spring 2020, May 25, 2018 [C9, C10];
- "set to open in spring 2020", from the county, March 21, 2019 [C11];
- "anticipated opening: fall 2020" [C13];
- "Phase 2 grand opening: 2020" [C14];
- "Steinmetz Hall will debut this fall" [C15];
- "Steinmetz Hall and The Green Room will debut in 2021" [C17];
- "will open in 2022, joining Walt Disney Theater" [C18];
- January 2022, announced November 3, 2021 [C19].
The reason. None of the county or center pages read ties the move out of 2020, or the later moves, to a cause. The center's release of November 3, 2021 says "Despite many challenges caused by the pandemic, the arts are thriving in our community" [C19]; it does not connect that to the hall's date. The March 17, 2020 copy of the Phase 2 page, which still says "this fall", carries the banner "Events scheduled through the end of March are postponed or canceled" [C15].
The cost. The promise's number is $45 million more of hotel tax [C3]. At the groundbreaking the center said in its release: "The total cost of the project is $237.5 million" [C8]. The county said in March 2019 that $143 million of construction money had been used for "phase 2 and Steinmetz Hall" [C12]. No later page read gives a total cost for Steinmetz Hall, so this entry cannot say whether the $237.5 million changed. The center's later "Total project cost" of $604 million, then $612 million, sits on its Phase 2 page beside the dates of both phases [C14, C16], and its November 3, 2021 release calls the finished center a "$612 million performing arts center" [C20].
The hall. The county says it "completes the original design for the arts center" [C22].

The promise

Orange County's news story of November 10, 2016, "Orange County BCC Approves TDT Plan, Including Funding to Complete the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts", reports that "the BCC unanimously approved this three-part proposal on November 1" [C2]. One part was the money for the hall, "an additional $45 million of Tourist Development Tax (TDT) funding to complete the second and final stage" [C3]. The same story gives the schedule: "Phase II will break ground in 2017, with an expected grand opening in 2020." [C1]

The sentence is the county's word "expected", on the county's own news page; it is not a pledge in the mayor's own words. The Dr. Phillips Center itself said, in a release posted March 6, 2017, that "Steinmetz Hall and The Green Room are scheduled to open in 2020." [C8] This entry counts the lateness against the year the county gave.

The county's pages carry later edit dates. The saved copy of the November 10, 2016 story, and of the March 14, 2017 story and the March 21, 2019 release, each declare in their page data that they were last modified on January 12, 2022, two days before the opening [C1, C4, C11]. The words quoted from them are the words on the pages as fetched on November 3, 2026. The Internet Archive holds earlier copies of two of those stories, at the county's newsroom addresses, and they carry the same wording: the copy of the 2016 story dated July 18, 2019 has the sentence "Phase II will break ground in 2017, with an expected grand opening in 2020." [C26], and the copy of the groundbreaking story dated July 19, 2019 has "which has an expected grand opening of 2020" [C29]. The page data of those two copies says they were last modified on September 17, 2018 and September 14, 2018 [C30]. A copy shows a page as it was on the day it was copied. The 2020 date does not rest on those pages alone: the center's own release posted March 6, 2017 [C8], its update of May 25, 2018 [C9] and its Phase 2 pages [C13, C14] each gave 2020, and the county's 2019 release gave spring 2020 [C11].

Timeline

November 1 and 10, 2016. The BCC approves the plan; the county's story says break ground 2017, "expected grand opening in 2020" [C1 to C3].
March 6, 2017. The center's release, posted that day: "scheduled to open in 2020." [C8]
March 14, 2017 (the county's story). The county reports the groundbreaking of Phase II as held "on Monday", which was March 13 by the calendar (counted by this entry). It describes "a 1,700-seat acoustical theater" and still gives "an expected grand opening of 2020" [C4 to C6, C23].
May 25, 2018. The center: construction "on time and on budget to open in spring 2020" [C9, C10].
March 21, 2019. The county, at the topping-off: "set to open in spring 2020"; "$143 million was used for construction of phase 2 and Steinmetz Hall" [C11, C12].
July 18 and 19, 2019 (Internet Archive copies). The county's 2016 story and its groundbreaking story, at their newsroom addresses, carry the same promise and the same opening year [C26, C29].
August 19, 2019 (Internet Archive copy). The center's Phase 2 page: "anticipated opening: fall 2020" [C13].
November 12, 2019 (copy). "Phase 2 grand opening: 2020", "Total project cost: $604 million" [C14].
March 17, 2020 (copy). "Steinmetz Hall will debut this fall"; "Total project cost: $612 million" [C15, C16].
August 6, 2020 (copy). "Steinmetz Hall and The Green Room will debut in 2021": the promised year is no longer on the page [C17].
October 17, 2021 (copy). "will open in 2022, joining Walt Disney Theater" [C18].
November 3, 2021. The center's release: the debut of Steinmetz Hall in January 2022 and of Judson's in May 2022 [C19].
January 14, 2022. The official grand opening ceremony [C21].
Today. The county's 2016 story still carries the sentence "expected grand opening in 2020", unchanged, as fetched on November 3, 2026 [C1].

What changed, and why, in the record's own words

The date. From the opening "in 2020" [C1] to spring 2020 [C9, C11], fall 2020 [C13, C15], 2021 [C17], 2022 [C18] and January 2022 [C19, C21]. The pages read give no reason for any of these moves. The county's story of March 14, 2017 gives a reason for something earlier: the center "was approved as one project" in 2007, "but due to the Great Recession and related funding challenges, it was ultimately split into two phases" [C7]. That split came before the 2016 promise and is not offered as the reason for the slip.
The scope. In 2017 the county described "a 1,700-seat acoustical theater" [C6]. At the opening the county says the hall "completes the original design for the arts center" [C22]. The 2017 plan also named a second space, The Green Room [C8]. The center's Phase 2 page, at one address, was headed "Phase 2: Steinmetz Hall & The Green Room" on the copies of August 19, 2019 through August 6, 2020 [C13, C14, C15, C17] and "Phase 2: Steinmetz Hall & Judson's" on the copies of October 17 and December 1, 2021 [C18]; Judson's debut was announced for May 2022 [C19]. The same release has a section headed About the Judson’s Green Room, which says "Named after Joyce and Judson Green, Judson's is a dynamic, cabaret-style space" [C24]; on the center's own wording the second space is the Green Room, now carrying the Greens' names. The center's release posted March 6, 2017 lists, among its funding sources, "private gifts led by philanthropists Margery Pabst Steinmetz and Chuck Steinmetz, Joyce and Judson Green" [C25]. This entry did not check whether the naming of Judson's was tied to a gift. This entry did not check whether its design or size changed.
The money. See the next section.

What it cost

The promise. An additional $45 million of Tourist Development Tax [C3].
The project's cost at groundbreaking. The center's release about the groundbreaking of Steinmetz Hall and The Green Room says "The total cost of the project is $237.5 million", that the center "has generated $222.8 million", and that it "has committed to raising the remaining $14.7 million through private contributions" [C8]. It lists Orange County's Tourist Development Tax among the funding sources [C8].
March 2019. The county said that, of the construction funds the county and its tourism partners had provided, backed by the Tourist Development Tax, "$143 million was used for construction of phase 2 and Steinmetz Hall" [C12].
The whole center. The center's page read "Total project cost: $604 million" on the November 12, 2019 copy [C14] and "Total project cost: $612 million" on the March 17, 2020 copy [C16]. Its November 3, 2021 release calls the finished center a "$612 million performing arts center" [C20]. These are totals the page gives beside the dates of both phases, not figures for Steinmetz Hall alone; no page read after March 2017 gives a total cost for Steinmetz Hall, so the entry does not compare $237.5 million with $612 million.

What this entry did not check

The reason for each slip after March 2020. No county or center page read gives one (see the pandemic lines above, which are not one). Search results showed news headlines that named causes; none was read, and this entry makes no statement about them.
Money the county may have added after 2016. Search results showed headlines about the center seeking more tourist-tax money in late 2019. No Board agenda or minutes for it were found, so this entry cannot say whether, when or how much was approved. The $45 million [C3] and the $143 million [C12] are the only county amounts read.
Whether the $237.5 million changed. Only the March 2017 total [C8] was read for Steinmetz Hall; no later total or final cost for it was found.
The Board's minutes of November 1, 2016. Not read. The vote is known from the county's story [C2].
The exact groundbreaking day from a second source. The county's story, dated March 14, 2017 [C23], says "on Monday" [C4], which is March 13; no other record of the day was reconciled.
The seat count at opening. The 2017 figure is 1,700 [C6]; the center's pages of August and November 2019 list "1,600–1,700 seats" for the concert-hall format [C13, C14]; no opening-day figure was read.
Whether the hall is open today. The county's January 2022 post is the last word read [C21]. No 2026 page from the center that names the hall was found: two of its current pages render without the name in a browser, and its 2021 release is read from the Internet Archive copy of August 3, 2024 [C19, C20].
The Internet Archive's dates. A copy shows what a page said on the day it was copied, not the day the wording changed; each change fell between the copy before it and the copy that shows it.

Sources

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