Originally published Feb. 2, 2013
For Universal Orlando, the opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in the summer of 2010 was like winning the lottery.
In the first year alone, attendance jumped 20 percent to 11.2 million people. Sales soared 40 percent to more than $1 billion. Profit leapt sixfold to $150 million. And, for the resort's top executives, pay more than doubled, with nearly $6 million in bonuses awarded to five people.
But Harry Potter helped win something else for Universal, too: a multimillion-dollar tax break for creating jobs in an “urban high-crime area.”
Records obtained by the Orlando Sentinel show that Universal has claimed more than $2.3 million worth of state tax credits since mid-2010 based on jobs it added to accommodate the millions of travelers flocking to Wizarding World.
Universal has been able to get the credits by tapping a 16-year-old state-incentive program designed to encourage businesses to expand in or move into crime-plagued communities across Florida.
The program offers as much as $1,500 in tax credits for every full-time job a business creates in a zone identified as an urban high-crime area. Universal, which borders Orlando's affluent Dr. Phillips neighborhood, has received credits for 1,561 jobs since August 2010, including cooks, security guards and boat drivers, among many others.
It is not Universal's first time dipping into this particular incentive pool. Records show the theme-park resort claimed more than $3.8 million in high-crime-area tax credits back in 2000-01 after the 1999 opening of its second theme park, Universal's Islands of Adventure.
What's more, a joint venture among Universal, Loews Hotels & Resorts and the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which operates three luxury hotels at Universal Orlando, has received an additional $2 million in tax credits — all issued from 2000 to 2002, shortly after the three hotels opened.
According to data from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, Universal and its hotel affiliate have together claimed 37 percent of all the tax-credit money awarded to date statewide through the high-crime-area program.
A former state lawmaker who helped establish the program accused Universal of exploiting an initiative supposed to help revive struggling neighborhoods.
"That's an abuse of what we intended," said former state Sen. James Hargrett, a Democrat who represented a Tampa-area district from 1992-2000. "It may be legal, but it isn't in the spirit of what we passed or the intent. It's not right."
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