Orlando entrepreneur, Church Street visionary Bob Snow has died at age 82
Bob Snow, an entrepreneur who had a vision to revitalize a stretch of downtown Orlando in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 82.
Snow’s enterprises began with Church Street Station, an entertainment and dining complex that opened in summer 1974. It eventually drew millions of tourists annually — frequently by the busloads — with themed businesses named Rosie O’Grady’s Good Time Emporium, Cheyenne Saloon, Apple Annie’s Courtyard, Lili Marlene’s Aviator’s Pub and Phineas Phogg’s Balloon Works.
The vibe was pre-World World I with country-western and Dixieland music tossed in, too. And there were disco and rock and roll options. It also was famed for Nickel Beer Night.
“It was singers and dancers and red-hot girls and jugglers and bagpipe players, and about 25 buses on a Saturday night,” Snow told the Orlando Sentinel in 2014.
Snow’s Church Street Exchange building was constructed in 1988.
His background included military service and gigs as a professional trumpet player. He had opened the Seville Quarter entertainment complex in Pensacola in the 1960s.
His interest in the Church Street area started with a detour while on a business trip. That led to him buying seven pieces of dilapidated property for $22 million.
“When he came to downtown, there was nothing,” said Rick Kilby, who worked for Snow for nine years, eventually as creative director. “He saw empty buildings, and he saw the potential, but nobody else saw it at the time.”
These new Church Street establishments were heavily themed and decorated.
“He was also a collector, and I think that worked for him at Church Street,” Kilby said. “He collected stuff at antique auctions from all over the world and brought them back to Church Street and reconfigured them and built this masterpiece.”
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Eventually Snow had 650 employees stationed there. Annual attendance peaked at 3.5 million, Snow said.
“I never built the thing to make money,” Snow told the Orange County Regional History Center. “All I did was make it as beautiful as I could, surround myself with the best-looking people I could find, the smartest people and the most talented people, and let them do their thing.”
He hired a lot of young people, Kilby recalled.
“There was something in the DNA of the culture at Church Street Station where everybody just had a good time and exemplified what he was preaching — let the good times roll,” Kilby said.
The development of Downtown Disney — now called Disney Springs — and Universal CityWalk took a bite out of downtown Orlando’s tourist crowd.
A subsidiary of Baltimore Gas & Electric purchased Church Street Station for $61 million in 1989. Multiple owners followed over the next few years, and the last of those businesses closed in 2001.
After Church Street, Snow sought to develop a similar complex in Las Vegas. His attention returned to Orlando and a brief reopening of Cheyenne Saloon in 2008.
He continued to be involved in potential development projects from downtown Orlando to Kissimmee. He was a board member of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts and was the organizer of VetFest USA, a veterans appreciation street party in 2014.
Snow attended the December opening of FORDify the Arts courtyard behind the CityArts building downtown. Pieces of the demolished Church Street ballroom — bricks, wrought iron, gates — are incorporated into the space.
He also made local television appearances in December. He reminisced about the Church Street days on WFTV’s “Central Florida Spotlight.”
“We invented fun,” he said.