The site is on the southeast corner of Osceola Parkway and International Drive South, a hot development axis. Osceola has budgeted $98.5 million for the center.

Xentury has until mid-September to work out a development contract with the county. Xentury would break ground in November and target a February 2005 opening for the convention center and a 30-story, 1,000-room hotel planned with Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc. of White Plains, N.Y.

The hotel would fly either a Westin or Sheraton flag. Xentury and Starwood would jointly manage the hotel. Xentury would also manage the convention center which would have 250,000 sf of usable, unobstructed exhibit area initially and 37,500 sf of meeting space.

Additional convention center space could be constructed later in an adjoining attached structure. "There is sufficient land for such an expansion," Susan Lawrence, Xentury's vice president/marketing, tells GlobeSt.com.

If the Xentury deal sours, Osceola would try to close a contract with Austin-based Landmark Organization Inc., ranked second for the project. Tempus Resorts International of Orlando placed third in the Osceola county commissioners' rankings Monday.

For Xentury, the nod from Osceola elected officials stamps the 10-year-old Orlando company as one of the foremost developers in the area. Xentury developed a 400-acre tract where Nashville, TN-based Gaylord Entertainment Inc. leases 65 acres for its $405 million, 1,406-room Gaylord Palms resort.

That 400-acre parcel is where Xentury plans to build the convention center, hotel, 175,000 sf of retail and a people-mover system that would link all the properties. Lawrence says she is confident there will be sufficient business for the two hotels.

"We would never build a project that would hurt an existing project," Lawrence tells GlobeSt.com. "This venture is planned for (first quarter) 2005 when the economy is expected to be strong again and a new tourist season will just be starting."

The Xentury plan envisions the creation of the Osceola County Convention Corridor Group, a consortium of small hotels and tourism/convention-related businesses that would promote the convention center area year around.

The Osceola convention center would be soliciting mid-sized clients which are either too small exhibit products in the two million sf of exhibit space at Orange County Convention Center or too large to display presentations in smaller hotel convention and meeting rooms.

Xentury City won't earn a specific development fee for guiding the project. "Our benefits will come from new development opportunities around the convention site," Lawrence tells GlobeSt.com.

Convention center consultants are St. Joe Hospitality, a division of Jacksonville, FL-based St. Joe Co., the biggest developer and land owner in Florida; Fort Lauderdale, FL-based Centex-Rooney Construction Management Co.; and financial adviser HSBC Securities, a New York subsidiary of Toronto-based HSBC Bank Canada.