Desperate to reignite the magnetism that once enveloped the 7.3-acre entertainment compound, elected city officials voted 6-1 to give the creator of internationally-acclaimed boy bands, $1.5 million in loans. The money will be used to renovate the 100-year-old, 136,000-sf, three-story vacant Church Street Exchange building where Pearlman will move his 500-person global musical headquarters staff by December from its existing International Drive site.

On the $1.5 million loan, the former Flushing Queens, NY-native has 14 years to repay the money and will pay only the interest on the loan for the first four years. Pearlman is also getting 12 years of tax rebates with an estimated annual value of $60,000, starting in 2005 and based on a percentage of any increase in the property's assessed value resulting from his improvements.

The Orange County Property Appraiser's office valued Church Street Station in 1996 at $26 million. Last year, the property plummeted to a value of $10.6 million for tax purposes. If Pearlman and Church Street Station co-owner Robert L. Kling, president, FF South & Co., get the property back to its 1996 level, they will split the tax proceeds evenly. If they can only increase the value above the current assessment, they will receive a 35% cut in taxes.

The 48-year-old Pearlman, who also owns a NYPD Pizza franchise Downtown and has equity ownership in other retail ventures, also negotiated to receive a total 500 free parking spaces from the city--400 under Interstate 4 Downtown for up to five years, and 100 in the Church Street Market parking garage for five years.

There's more. If Pearlman's television and film production company Trans Continental Studios creates 300 jobs by the end of 2004, the state will pay the company $5,500 per job, a potential total of $1.65 million.

In return for the incentives package, Pearlman promises to stage at least 250 annual nightly outdoor musical events; open by March 2004 a museum dedicated to the history of music in Florida; and re-open the 80,000-sf Presidential Ballroom sector of Church Street Station.

Pearlman told city council he plans to invest at least $9 million on face-lifting the Church Street Exchange building and another $3 million in renovating and refurbishing the rest of the complex.

Residents, developers, elected officials and tourists will be monitoring the Pearlman undertaking at Church Street Station to see if he can duplicate the magnetism that Orlando developer Bob Snow created when he built the complex in 1974.

Church Street Station attracted 1.7 million visitors a year in the 1980s. But after Snow sold the property in 1988 to Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. for $61 million, the area around Church Street Station declined and the customer base at the attraction followed suit.

Kling and his investor group bought Church Street Station on May 5, 2000 for $15.85 million from the Joe Lewis investment group of Orlando and London. Area land brokers dealing in Downtown dirt tell globeSt.com that based on the 7.3 acres alone, the $15.85 million price equates to $2.17 million per acre or about $49.84 per sf, a bargain at the time for prime acreage fronting Interstate 4.