Pictures: Magic Village construction stalls in Kissimmee
Scenes from the Magic Village by Pininfarina vacation townhomes project in Kissimmee, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. Developers have collected more than $87 million in deposits for townhomes but –six years later– have only completed 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Fiber optic conduit lays across Torino Road at Monza Court in the Magic Village development in Kissimmee, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later, it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Signage at the Magic Village construction site in Kissimmee advertises a clubhouse to come, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Signage at an empty lot at the Magic Village construction site in Kissimmee advertises development to come, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Fiber optic conduit lays across Torino Road at Monza Court in the Magic Village development in Kissimmee, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later, it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Rusting shipping containers sit at the Magic Village construction site in Kissimmee, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Fiber optic conduit lays across Torino Road at Monza Court in the Magic Village development in Kissimmee, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later, it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
A street sign on “Life Is Beautiful Blvd.” points to a dead end at the Magic Village construction site in Kissimmee , Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Stacked steel beams sit along Torino Road at Monza Court, background, in the Magic Village development in Kissimmee, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later, it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Fiber optic conduit lays across Torino Road at Monza Court in the Magic Village development in Kissimmee, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later, it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Signage at the Magic Village construction site in Kissimmee advertises a clubhouse to come, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Building materials sit at the intersection of Torino Road and Monza Court in the Magic Village development in Kissimmee, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later, it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Completed townhomes on Torino Road at the Magic Village construction site in Kissimmee, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Signage at an empty lot at the Magic Village construction site in Kissimmee advertises development to come, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Fiber optic conduit lays across Torino Road at Monza Court in the Magic Village development in Kissimmee, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later, it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
A no trespassing sign welcomes visitors at “Life Is Beautiful Blvd.” at the Magic Village construction site in Kissimmee , Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. Magic Companies have collected more than $87 million in deposits for vacation townhomes in Magic Village by Pininfarina, but six years later it has only finished 76 units. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Column: Look out, Uber. The future looks a lot more like Waymo
By Hannah Elliott, Bloomberg News
There’s something fundamentally American about the freedom to get in your car and drive.
Driving is self-determination. The liberty to set your own course. The power to move under your own willpower, whether for duty or sheer pleasure. Despite some decline among Gen Zers, plenty of teens still eagerly anticipate getting their driver’s license. In many American towns, where public transportation and walkability are scarce, driving is what empowers you to explore.
Some motoring enthusiasts worry self-driving vehicles threaten that ideal. These robot autos, run by Google and China and Elon Musk, use AI and radars to navigate without human input; they could replace our car-centric culture with faceless communal bots controlled by opaque entities. Even worse, self-driving vehicles present safety concerns and other vulnerabilities, such as being hacked or spoofed by malicious agents at home or abroad.
I’ve covered the car industry for 20 years, and I would hate to see our sports coupes and road trips disappear. The risks associated with relinquishing control over my mobility also give me pause. Or they did. I took a Waymo for the first time recently in Los Angeles and … I haven’t stopped using it since. Rather than replace our cool cars, self-driving vehicles will, I predict, become a welcome complement to modern life, first as part of ride-sharing platforms and then as privately owned transport. Why? Because they offer an excellent solution for something nobody likes: commuting.
Is a continuing care retirement community right for you?
Amy Arnott of Morningstar
Deciding where to live later in life isn’t an easy task. Many seniors prefer to stay in their own homes but may need help managing medical issues or day-to-day tasks. Others might move in with their adult children or family members.
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One potential solution is a continuing care retirement community, or life plan community.
A CCRC is a community living facility where retirees can access a spectrum of care as they age—care levels typically include independent living, assisted living, nursing care, and memory care. Most CCRCs also offer a range of amenities and activities, such as on-site fitness centers and groups for different hobbies.
Will data centers drive up Florida electric bills? This case could decide
For the first time in Florida, utility regulators are mulling how to handle data centers — the energy-guzzling facilities that house computer equipment needed to power artificial intelligence and other tech programs.
Data centers in other parts of the country have already skyrocketed some Americans’ electric bills, as utilities must rapidly build more power plants and transmission lines to compensate for the soaring demand. The issue has come up as part of the complex rate case of Florida Power & Light, giving state utility regulators the chance to set guardrails that could set a precedent for Duke Energy Florida and Tampa Electric.
When Florida Power & Light first filed its request to hike base rates, it asked to collect nearly $10 billion more from customers over the next four years. Embedded in that petition was also how it proposed to address data centers: It would require tech companies to pay a minimum bill representing 90% of their expected energy costs. That way, if a data center’s consumption fell short, residents wouldn’t be required to cover the gap incurred by the utility building up its infrastructure to accommodate the facility.
In Orlando theme parks, animatronics increase in number — and in realism
Mechanical birds, bears and princesses have chirped, growled and sung in Orlando’s theme parks for more than 50 years. The animatronic trend shows no signs of fading, as new figures arrive in new places at Walt Disney World, and Epic Universe introduces batches of lifelike characters.
The additions range from a planned electronic version of Walt Disney at Magic Kingdom to a lumbering Frankenstein’s monster figure that debuted with Epic in May.
“People still enjoy seeing lifelike figures of their heroes, villains and others come alive,” said Dennis Speigel, CEO of International Theme Park Services. “I think this is one area that continues to evolve, and I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet.”
Technological advances are enabling the improved illusion of the figures, said Brian Ott, show systems studio executive with Walt Disney Imagineering.
“The way that we can now simulate, the way that we now design, the way that we now can generate content for these and in style — like it is moving like the character that everybody sees and recognizes from the film … I think that’s really the appeal of like, ‘Wow, not only did I see Elsa on the ride, but I felt like it was Elsa. It moved, it performed, it looked at me,’” Ott said.