The Downtown Orlando Partnership’s Golden Brick Awards highlight the people, projects, and businesses shaping downtown’s growth, with this year’s Hospitality & Dining category recognizing standout concepts like Sparrow, alongside nominees June, Leiah, and Walter’s Tavern at The Great Southern Box Company.

The New Local Business category further reflects the city’s evolving food and beverage scene, with names like A La Cart – City, Buffalo Boss, Nuri’s Tavern, Osteria Ester, and The Good Pour College Park contributing to downtown’s momentum.

Beyond dining, the awards also spotlight broader leadership and community impact. Ryan Young, CEO and co-founder of Interstruct Design + Build, was named 2025 Downtowner of the Year for his decades-long influence on downtown Orlando through architecture, construction, and adaptive reuse projects.

His work spans major office developments and historic renovations, paired with a strong commitment to community initiatives like Project 814, which provides food distribution and support to local residents.

Overall, the Golden Brick Awards reflect a city in active evolution—where new restaurants, local businesses, and long-term civic leadership all play a role in shaping a more connected, resilient, and vibrant downtown Orlando.

2025 DOP GBA WINNERS

ARTS + CULTURE

Frontyard Holiday Festival at Dr. Phillips Center™ supported by AdventHealth

The Frontyard Holiday Festival at Dr. Phillips Center transformed Seneff Arts Plaza into a free, 28-night holiday experience that drew over 154,000 guests, featured 168 live performances, created more than 100 seasonal jobs, and generated $18.4 million in regional economic impact. The festival served 711 students, teachers, veterans, and seniors through community giveback programming and earned national media coverage reaching 1.7 billion in audience across more than 300 online placements.

COMMERCIAL + RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT

Hamlin House

Hamlin House brings a 28,000-square-foot modern racquet club to Orlando’s SoDo district, pairing seven pickleball courts with elevated dining, social spaces, and thoughtful design to create a sport-and-hospitality destination unlike anything else downtown. The club expands how people engage with the urban core by driving sustained activity beyond traditional business hours and positioning pickleball as both a competitive sport and a social connector in a neighborhood that continues to evolve.

COMMUNITY

Drive Out Holiday Hunger Initiative

The Drive Out Hunger Holiday Initiative brought together five major partners to address food insecurity across Central Florida during the holiday season, delivering more than 1.5 million meals to families across 361 schools in Orange, Seminole, and Osceola counties. Using downtown Orlando as its central stage, the campaign activated public spaces through a branded Holiday Bus, food donation drives, and event integrations at Orlando Magic games and Downtown for the Holidays, turning high-visibility moments into meaningful community impact.

ENTERTAINMENT + SPECIAL EVENTS

2025 Vans Warped Tour

After a six-year hiatus, Vans Warped Tour chose Orlando as one of only three cities for its 30th anniversary return, drawing 120,000 fans to Camping World Stadium over two days for a cross-generational celebration of pop-punk, emo, and hardcore music alongside BMX and skateboarding. The massive turnout filled area hotels and restaurants, generating significant economic impact for the downtown corridor.

HOSPITALITY + DINING

Sparrow

Sparrow is an intimate wine bar and lounge from Good Salt Restaurant Group, featuring a curated selection of New and Old World wines, a modern cocktail program, and a Southern European-inspired kitchen led by Chef Wendy Lopez, a 2026 James Beard Foundation nominee. With rotating wine dinners, monthly High Tea, and a menu rooted in the coastal traditions of France, Portugal, and Spain, Sparrow brings a cozy, European sensibility to the North Quarter.

INNOVATION + TECHNOLOGY

2025 Orlando Game Jam

The 2025 Orlando Game Jam at the Orlando Public Library brought together 54 participants to create original video games in just three days at the Melrose Center, culminating in a public showcase at the Orlando Gaming Expo that drew more than 500 attendees. By offering free access to advanced tools and industry experts, the event elevated Orlando’s tech and gaming community while positioning downtown as an accessible hub for innovation, creativity, and lifelong learning.

NEW LOCAL BUSINESS

The Good Pour College Park

The Good Pour College Park reimagined a conventional wine and spirits store into a hospitality-driven retail destination featuring an intuitive layout, concierge-style checkout, and immersive spaces that transform a routine transaction into an engaging community experience. By embedding charitable giving into every transaction, the Good Pour supports a broad network of local nonprofits while driving both economic activity and meaningful community impact.

NEW OFFICE DESIGN

AECOM Office

AECOM’s newly renovated Orange Avenue office serves as a downtown hub for 180 local professionals, featuring biophilic design, full-height windows, and purpose-built collaboration spaces that reflect the firm’s commitment to wellness, innovation, and people-centered workplaces. Strategically located within walking distance of both SunRail and LYNX stations, the office functions as a living lab for transit-oriented development, connecting global expertise to local projects that shape Orlando’s infrastructure, mobility, and quality of life.

PUBLIC WORKS + PLACEMAKING

407 Connect

407 Connect uses two retrofitted charter buses equipped with sleeping pods to provide nightly shelter, case management, and housing assistance for up to 42 guests, backed by $3 million in CRA funding through a partnership between the City of Orlando and the Christian Service Center for the Homeless. With a goal of connecting 407 people to housing over three years, it offers a cost-effective, replicable model delivering immediate and measurable impact in downtown Orlando.

REDESIGN + RENOVATION

Orlando Health Cancer Institute — BMT Expansion

The Orlando Health Cancer Institute’s Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy program expanded from 4 beds to 30 private infection-controlled rooms, making it one of the largest BMT units in Florida and eliminating the need for Central Florida patients to travel out of the region for advanced, lifesaving care. The sevenfold capacity increase attracts leading oncology specialists and cements downtown ORMC as a world-class healthcare destination for complex cancer treatment.

SPORTS

2025 FIFA Club World Cup

Orlando made history as the only FIFA Club World Cup city with two host venues, with Inter&Co Stadium and Camping World Stadium welcoming more than 180,000 attendees and generating an estimated $73 million in economic impact and over 57,000 hotel room nights for the region. The global broadcast reached more than 2 billion viewers worldwide, putting downtown Orlando on an international stage and reinforcing the city’s growing reputation as a premier destination for world-class sporting events.

SUSTAINABILITY + RESILIENCY

Creating Affordable Homeownership Opportunities in Parramore

In 2025, Habitat for Humanity Greater Orlando & Osceola County reached a milestone in Parramore with 10 homes completed in a single year, building on decades of work that have brought more than 70 affordable homes to this historic downtown neighborhood. By placing homes close to downtown Orlando, the initiative eased cost pressures, reinforced family stability, and supported a stronger, more connected urban core, showing how thoughtful housing investment creates lasting impact.

GAME CHANGER

Travel + Leisure Co. Global Headquarters

The Travel + Leisure Co. Global Headquarters at 501 W. Church Street represented the largest downtown office lease since 2019, bringing more than 900 employees into a fully renovated 186,000-square-foot building through a coordinated public-private partnership. The relocation drives sustained economic activity for surrounding businesses, strengthening the West Church Corridor, and signaling renewed corporate investment in downtown Orlando.

The project transformed an existing office building into a contemporary workplace designed around employee well-being, collaboration, and innovation. The environment features expansive natural light, open collaboration zones, advanced hybrid meeting technology, and sit to stand desks for every associate, creating a workplace that is both high-performing and human-centered.

The impact has been immediate and measurable. Backed by a $36 million investment, the project introduced consistent daily foot traffic that supports restaurants, retail, and neighborhood businesses across downtown and Parramore. It also demonstrates how large-scale office assets can be modernized and repositioned to meet evolving market demands, reinforcing downtown Orlando as a competitive location for major employers.

AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

Steve Hogan and Florida Citrus Sports’ 80 Years of Impact Celebration presented by AdventHealth

For 80 years, Florida Citrus Sports has helped shape downtown Orlando’s identity as a destination for world-class sports, and in 2025, that legacy came to life through a season-long 80 Years of Impact campaign that activated venues and businesses across the urban core. From a speaker event with Kirk Herbstreit to a legacy panel at the Orange County Regional History Center, along with murals, retail partnerships, and a Thornton Park pop-up experience, the campaign turned a milestone into a community-wide celebration while supporting Lift Orlando.

At the center of it all is CEO Steve Hogan, who marked 30 years of leadership in 2025. Under his direction, Florida Citrus Sports continues to deliver impact at every level. Bowl Week alone brought more than 80,000 visitors downtown and millions of viewers worldwide, while major wins like hosting the FIFA Club World Cup and securing the Jacksonville Jaguars for a future season further elevated Orlando’s global profile.

Through the leadership of Steve Hogan and the enduring vision of Florida Citrus Sports, this work reflects a long-term commitment to both place and people. It is a legacy measured not just in events, but in impact, and not just in moments, but in momentum, and it continues to shape the future of downtown Orlando in powerful and lasting ways.

DOWNTOWNER OF THE YEAR 

Ryan Young

Ryan Young, AIA, has spent 25 years reinvesting in downtown Orlando as co-founder and CEO of Interstruct Design + Build, delivering projects in nearly every major downtown office building, including Travel + Leisure Co.’s 900-employee global headquarters, while championing adaptive reuse through transformations like the historic Angebilt Building and Interstruct’s own West Church Street headquarters. In 2020, he deepened that commitment by relocating to Parramore, commissioning the Unity Mural at 814 W. Church Street, which sparked a transformative partnership with The Desire Foundation Inc. and gave rise to Project 814, a monthly food distribution initiative now serving over 1,380 individuals and distributing nearly 15,000 pounds of free groceries each month. Through Parramore Arts, the ArtCube micro-gallery, pro bono design work for community landmarks, and quarterly events that connect artists, builders, and neighbors, Ryan has built a body of work guided by a simple philosophy: what gets built should serve the community for the next