Why Is Disney Moving to Lake Nona?
Imagineer Kevin Lively recently broke hearts with this tweet:
After 14 years at Disney I’m going to be hanging up my mouse ears. I never thought I’d be stepping away, but sometimes life throws you a curveball. In June we learned that Imagineering would be relocating to Florida. My wife and I looked long and hard at the possibility, but we pic.twitter.com/YRUlwwh6G1
— Kevin Lively (@Livelyland) October 13, 2021
A popular Disneyland employee, Lively, worked his way up from Jungle Cruise Skipper to Imagineer, thereby attaining his dream job.
Here was Lively stating that he was willingly walking away from Imagineering and seeking other work in Southern California.
Lively decided this after The Walt Disney Company informed him that his job was moving to Florida, with or without him. And that leads to a larger question.
Why is Disney moving to Lake Nona? Read on to find out…
A Quick History Lesson
In 1954, Walt Disney spent the body of his fortune acquiring 160 acres of orange groves for what would soon become the Happiest Place on Earth.
Even then, Uncle Walt understood that he’d miscalculated. Others would grab the land surrounding the park, creating a cottage industry at Disneyland.
Disney
Disney saw none of that money, though. He also lacked governmental control over his purchase.
Over the next decade, the entrepreneur gritted his teeth as others attained wealth thanks to his creation.
Finally, Walt Disney had enough. He determined that he would ask his empire by adding a new campus.
By this point, the creator had moved past the need for a single theme park, though. Instead, he sought something more beneficial to society.
Stealthily, Disney corrected a past mistake. He purchased tens of thousands of acres of land in Central Florida.
Since the area consisted of swampland, sellers happily got rid of it…right up until they discovered that someone with deep pockets was the buyer.
Disney himself joked that the first acre cost $80, while the last came at a price of $80,000. That 1000X markup is the Disney tax.
Still, the inventor of the theme park hardly cared. He got the state of Florida to leave him alone. Disney’s company claimed unprecedented rights.
As I often joke, Disney can legally build a nuclear power plant on its Florida land if so inclined. This is a real thing that Bloomberg explains here.
In Florida, Uncle Walt had planned to create the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.
Tragically, Disney contracted cancer before he could fulfill that dream.
Afterward, his older brother, Roy, built Walt Disney World as a tourist complex instead.
On this campus, Disney possesses land and power, two things it lacks in California.
About That Lack of Power…
Did you know that Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s house resides 60 minutes away from downtown Los Angeles? Yes, he’s a California resident.
Photo: Marc Piasecki/Getty Images
Given this information, you may expect Disney to commit more to the West Coast now that Chapek’s in charge.
Alas, something happened in Anaheim in 2018 that caused Disney to reconsider its California status.
Park officials had planned to construct a new Disneyland Resort hotel at Downtown Disney.
Anaheim officials had signed off on the agreement, offering $267 million in tax incentives over 20 years to seal the deal.
Then, something unexpected happened.
Anti-Disney people ran for City Council and won in Anaheim. They had no interest in providing a massive tax incentive to a gigantic corporation like Disney.
Photo: Jeff Antenore / for Voice of OC)
Kevin Lively couldn’t have known it at the time, but this turn of events would change his life.
Disney filed the paperwork to build the resort two blocks away from the original location, the one that included governmental approval.
Photo: Disneyland
The Anaheim City Council refused to honor the terms for a different place. So Disney grudgingly punted on the construction of this resort.
Afterward, Disney took local politics a bit more seriously, helping Mouse-friendly people earn spots on the City Council in the next election.
Even after that, then-CEO Bob Iger and his future successor, Chapek, had realized that they lacked autonomy in Anaheim.
To Disney historians, the whole thing felt a bit disrespectful. The only reason why Anaheim possesses such a massive population is because of Disneyland.
Photo: Anaheim.net
When that theme park opened, Anaheim’s popularity soared with tourists and would-be homeowners.
In Anaheim, Disney still lacked the two things it coveted: land and power.
(Christian Thompson/Disneyland Resort)
The Lake Nona Announcement
For better and for worse, government works differently in Florida. We’ve witnessed this throughout the pandemic.
Earlier this year, Disney officials spoke with various members of Florida’s government about a new project.
Photo: Roberto Gonzalez
Disney sought to purchase new land in Lake Nona, Florida. Then, on July 15th, word broke that most California jobs that weren’t “fully dedicated” would move to Florida.
That wasn’t the most intriguing part of the story, though. As Josh D’Amaro stated, the plans had been in “various stages of planning since 2019.”
Photo: Raftermen 2018
In other words, Anaheim ticked off Disney enough that Iger formulated a plan to transition its base of power to the East Coast.
Chapek will have the move on his resume, as it’ll happen under his regime. This plan started more than two years ago, though.
Photo: www.bizjournals.com
To kickstart the process, Disney has purchased nearly 60 acres of land in Lake Nona.
On July 21st, BizJournals reported that Disney would spend $864 million in the process.
You’re reading the numbers here correctly. Anaheim shorted Disney $267 million. So, Disney turned around and spent more than three times that amount to move.
Disney executives evaluate Lake Nona as offering the very things that Anaheim doesn’t provide: land and power.
To wit, Florida offered Disney incentives that would max out at $570 million over the next 20 years.
That would leave Disney on the hook for $294 million in that timeframe, an average of $14.7 million per year.
That’s how much Disney is willing to pay to have more land and power.
D’Amaro described the advantages as:
“In addition to Florida’s business-friendly climate, this new regional campus gives us the opportunity to consolidate our teams and be more collaborative and impactful both from a creative and operational standpoint.”
Orange County, Florida is home to most of the Walt Disney World Resort
Credit: Orange County
What Does the Lake Nona Move Mean for Disney?
The answer to this question depends on whether you mean Disney employees or Disney fans.
For fans, Disney has just committed to a centralized location. So we won’t have Imagineering subdivided on the West Coast, as an example.
Most of those jobs will come to Florida. Not coincidentally, early estimates suggest that Disney’s Lake Nona move will add up to 2,000 new jobs.
Even better, the estimated average salary is $120,000. In Anaheim, the average worker earns $62,235. In Florida, people average $51,909.
Creator: Andy Dean |Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto | Copyright: Andy Dean
So, this amounts to a windfall for Central Florida, albeit one that has led to a housing crunch. MickeyBlog previously wrote about this aspect.
If you’re moving from California to work in Lake Nona, you’ll face an uphill battle in finding a new place to live, at least in the short term.
That part isn’t great for cast members. Then again, the alternative is worse. Disney has told its workers which ones must switch coasts.
Some said no, and they will no longer work for Disney. As Lively noted, the company has rejected most requests to remain in California.
Photo: MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)
Disney has fully committed to Florida as its base of operations. And this decision isn’t about money, at least not in the way you’d think.
Executives have chosen to pay nearly $15 million a year to have more power and land.
Is this the right decision? Based on Disneyland, we probably won’t know for at least a decade.
Feature Image: Four Seasons
