The Orlando City Council on Monday is expected to “approve a five-year lease for The Club at NBA City, a restaurant and bar being launched by representatives of NBA City at Universal CityWalk and the former manager of the Montecristo Club at the old city arena,” according to Mark Schlueb of the ORLANDO SENTINEL. The restaurant will "fill 4,160 square feet of ground-floor space" on the northwest corner of the Amway Center, which “has been walled off since the building opened in October 2010.” Project partner Tim Cary, who ran the Montecristo Club, said, “The build-out is very large, almost $1 million. When they built the arena, they planned to put a restaurant in there. But they didn’t do anything -- it’s a dirt floor; there are no walls or ceilings.” Schlueb reports The Club at NBA City will “be about a third the size” of the NBA City restaurant at Universal CityWalk and is “expected to open around October.” The plan is for half the restaurant to be "open to the public" while “the other half will be private.” The private half will “be open only to paid members, just as the Montecristo Club was at the old arena.” The Montecristo Club "had 315 members" when Amway Arena closed in '10. Plans also call for "outdoor-patio seating on the plaza around the arena.” NBA City GM Gerri Ferreira said, “If it works as well as we think it might, it will be something that we can take to other arenas.” Schlueb notes Magic execs are "considering their own expansion across Church Street from the arena.” Magic Owner Rich Devos wants to “turn what is now a city-owned parking garage with ground-floor retail space into a $100 million sports-and-entertainment complex” (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 5/3).
