Disney is revealing where they’d like to put future theme parks. The reason they’re showing their hand to competitors is a signal they know they’ll soon lose the ability to fully control land management as Florida takes over.
Winter is coming in regards to Disney’s ability to self-govern its giant theme park resort in Central Florida. After pledging to work towards a repeal of the Parental Rights in Education Law in Florida, the conservative government led by Governor Ron DeSantis, is stripping Disney of its one-of-a-kind powers. The company had enjoyed half-a-century of unfair competitive advantage over rivals due to the fact that Disney World was allowed to operate as a special district with two pseudo cities inside. And despite these once having been conceived as real future cities, Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista soon became cities with mobile home cul-de-sacs as their only population centers… each person in the well-hidden double wides being handpicked by Disney to live on their property. As a result, Disney was able to operate forty square miles of their crown jewel theme park mega resort with powers only ever provided to a government elsewhere.
But all of that is coming to an end. DeSantis’ government has announced that Reedy Creek Improvement District, the official name of Disney’s special district, will be restructured and power of its governance handed over to an actual government with elected members.
As I said months ago, as we close in on this transition of power, Disney will begin tipping their hat in terms of long-term plans they would like to have approved before the state takes over. As such, it’s no surprise that RCID is approving a plan for two more minor theme parks at Disney World (waterparks) and one major theme park (5th gate) for the future. The goal is to get everything approved before the state comes in and potentially prevents the ability. Had Florida not made plans to take over the governance of the Disney World governing powers, Disney likely would not have revealed information about their future expansion plans.
Of note was the long-term land use plan which includes more hotel rooms, two additional minor theme parks (waterparks), and one additional major theme park.
The updated plan is expected to be released in February 2023, which will provide an interesting insight into future development possibilities at Walt Disney World.
— WDWMagic
For holdouts still believing that Disney can fend off a Florida takeover of their once-legitimate pseudo cities and special district, this really is the nail in the coffin. Disney letting the world know where future theme parks may go and revealing information to competitors would never happen unless they really were trying to make it as difficult as possible for Florida to slow those plans down in the future. Thus Disney is clearly signaling they know DeSantis will soon have representatives ensuring Disney’s government powers are controlled via legitimate electoral processes.
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Bob Iger better figure things out quickly because his legacy will include the incredibly stupid decision to put politics before profits. I understand it was Bob Chapek, but Chapek was his handpicked successor. And from what we now know Bob Iger was also “in the know” as to everything happening at Disney.
Whether you agree with Bob Iger’s politics or not you cannot refute that Disney made a huge miscalculation on the Parental Rights in Education Bill fight. Anyone who has followed Disney even remotely knows that they have always been very secretive of their plans for WDW and for all legitimate business reasons. Why give any of your competitors a heads up if you don’t have too. Revealing future plans tells me everything I need to know about the strength of their position. It’s weak from a policy, legal, and business perspective.
This is just a plan, but plans often get derailed if they don’t pass regulations or regulatory approvals. Disney is just waiting for blowback if they think their plans are grandfathered in.
It is cute that Disney is doing this but once Reedy Creek loses that power it doesn’t matter what they had planned. Everything will need to be resubmitted to the new governing body. Florida can rezone all the land around the parks as environmentally protected and stop everything. Hell they can identify a rare mosquito nesting area next to the park and declare the lights from the park interfere with its breeding and require the parks to close at dark during breeding months. Will Florida take it that far? Doubt it, but they can and Disney will have to be aware of that moving forward.