Seminole County commissioners took the first step Tuesday toward building a large indoor complex for sports tournaments and other events estimated to cost more than $65 million.

Commissioners approved forming a tourism improvement district (TID) which allows hotels with more than 65 rooms to tack on an extra fee to a guest’s bill for each room night’s stay.

County officials and hoteliers have long said Seminole needs an indoor venue for events that attract visitors and fill hotel rooms.

“We need to continue to build tourism here and this is the next step,” said Bruce Skwarlo, general manager of the Orlando Marriott Lake Mary and chair of Seminole’s Tourist Development Council. “This is going to drive room nights. … This is going to be wonderful for our citizens.”

The TID assessment would be set and collected by hoteliers. The revenue would fund building and maintaining the indoor facility — proposed for a 28-acre site near the Boombah Sports Complex and Orlando Sanford International Airport.

The flat-rate fee would likely be under $10 per room night, according to county officials. A $3 assessment, for example, could generate up to $5.6 million in the first year, according to county documents.

“This is not a tax on our residents. It’s the hoteliers taxing themselves,” Commissioner Bob Dallari said.

The TID assessment would be added to a hotel room bill on top of the county’s 5% tourist tax and 7% state sales tax.

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County officials noted the average daily rate for a hotel room in Seminole last year was $128.90 — one of the lowest in Central Florida. In Orange County — with its theme parks and resorts — a comparable room was about $86 higher. So the extra fee would still keep Seminole hotel rooms at a lower cost, proponents said.

There are about 200 TIDs in 20 states around the country. The only other one in Florida is in the historic community of Ybor City, northeast of Tampa. West Hollywood, Calif., known for its vibrant nightlife that lures tourists, established the first such district in the early 1990s and it now raises about $41 million a year.

With the commission’s approval, the next step is for a majority of the county’s larger hotels — those with 60 rooms or more — to approve by end of June formation of the TID through a petition drive.

Seminole’s larger hotels have seen the bulk of visitors booking rooms for large amateur sports at the county’s facilities, including Boombah.

Hotel representatives would then establish a governing board that would set the assessment rate by the end of July. The board would manage TID funds and turn revenue over to the county. If everything goes as planned, the new assessment would go into place in January 2025.

The county would then use the revenues as leverage to finance bonds for construction of the indoor complex. County officials don’t have a date for when construction would start but a timetable could come as early next year.

The facility is proposed for at least 140,000 square feet — roughly 1½ times the size of a Walmart Supercenter — and accommodate 6,000 spectators. It would sit on land northwest of the intersection of Moore’s Station Road and East Lake Mary Boulevard.

Besides hosting sporting events — such as basketball, volleyball, martial arts and gymnastics — the complex could be used for musical events, theatrical performances or school graduations. Most Seminole high schools with hundreds of graduates hold annual commencement ceremonies at sites outside the county — such as the University of Central Florida — because there’s no suitable indoor facility in the county.

Since opening in 2016, Boombah has hosted 401 events and brings in tens of millions of dollars to the county every year from visitors, officials said. A recent county survey revealed 42% of Seminole’s hotel guests come for events at Boombah.

“It has been a tremendous success,” said Danny Trosset, Seminole’s director of sports tourism.

A new indoor complex near Boombah would augment sports tourism in the county, Jaclyn Lorigan, general manager of Hilton Inn in Altamonte Springs, said in support of the TID proposal.

“This is an opportunity for the local government to support sports tourism,” Lorigan said.