Is Disney Moving Forward with the Lake Nona Campus?
Disney and Florida’s state government basically unfollowed each other on social media and deleted their joint Insta pics. Maybe you heard.
The not-at-all passive, totally aggressive split between Florida and its most financially essential business created a strange impasse.


Photo: Wikipedia
Before all the 2022 nonsense occurred, The Walt Disney Company committed to a new headquarters in Lake Nona, Florida.
That project’s fate hung in the balance throughout the past year.


Photo: Roberto Gonzalez
Is Disney moving forward with the Lake Nona campus? We have an unexpected development that hints at…yes?!
Read on to find out more…
Disney’s Original Plan for Lake Nona


Photo: Charles Krupa/AP
Bob Chapek never met a dollar he didn’t like. He was the C. Montgomery Burns of corporate media CEOs.
Alas, Chapek lacked the one true skill of his predecessor, Bob Iger: Media savvy.


Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
That’s a hilariously ironic shortcoming for the CEO of a media company. Still, it’s an accurate assessment.
During his brief tenure, Chapek managed to incur the wrath of a beloved actress just as she was giving birth to her first child.


Photo: Splash News Online
Then, the since-deposed CEO hired someone to whom he paid nearly $120k PER DAY to lead Disney into oblivion.
That executive, Geoff Morrell, only lasted four months at Disney before exiting in shame.


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Morrell advised Chapek on the Don’t Say Gay bill in Florida, and we all know how that turned out.
Before this series of unfortunate events, Chapek signed another controversial agreement.


Photo: Charles Krupa/AP
The former CEO selected Lake Nona, Florida, as the new headquarters for Disney.
At the time, the company confirmed that 2,000 jobs would move to Lake Nona, with or without the employees currently holding them.


Photo Credit: Jeff Vahle
The forced relocation applied to digital technology, finance, and product development workers.
The part that angried up the blood was that it included Imagineers.


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Disney faced a predictable level of turnover among its Imagineers, the most vital knowledge base in the company.
To Disney fans, the Lake Nona move immediately got off to a bad start as Imagineers left…and said so publicly.
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
Why did Chapek make this move? The short answer is tax credits.
The Lake Nona Cost and Incentive


Photo: The Business Journals
Disney purchased 60 acres of land in Lake Nona, an area southeast of metropolitan Orlando.
The press brochures for Lake Nona describe it as the blueprint for “how to build a great American city.”
For Disney’s part, the appeal of Lake Nona, at least initially, came down to two issues. One is the development’s proximity to Walt Disney World.
According to Google, the city resides 18.4 miles away from the Disney campus. So, the convenience is difficult to beat, especially with Central Florida land soaring in value.
Still, the vital part of the Lake Nona move involves tax incentives.


Photo: Moneycrashers.com
Reports suggest that Disney will spend $864 million for the Lake Nona headquarters. That sounds prohibitively expensive, right?
The answer is actually no because the Florida government has promised Disney $570 million in incentives. In fact, a recent report suggests $578 million!


Photo: Wikimedia
Effectively, the state of Florida gave Disney a coupon for two-thirds off its Lake Nona purchase.
A new headquarters makes a lot more financial sense at $286 million than $864 million.
The state of Florida happily made this deal to entice Disney to move high-paying professional jobs to the East Coast.


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According to sources, the average Lake Nona job will pay $120,000. Also, Disney will employ 2,000 people at this headquarters.
You can imagine how big a boost that is to the Central Florida economy.
Pulling a Chapek


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I suggest that whenever somebody does something especially bone-headed involving Disney, we should say that they pulled a Chapek.
The former CEO himself pulled a Chapek when he somehow waited too long to take a stance on the Don’t Say Gay bill.


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In the process, Chapek managed to enrage both sides of the political aisle, which is hard to do these days.
At that point, Florida’s government rewrote its own laws to dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District.


Photo: Fox Business
That’s the managing organization for the Disney campus. Effectively, Reedy Creek empowers Disney to write its own rules for theme park management.
We’re still awaiting a resolution on this matter. However, the likeliest scenario is that Florida strips Disney of much of its authority for self-governance.


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For this reason, Disney officials soured on the idea of the Lake Nona development.
Let’s say that someone comes up to you and kicks you in the shin. Would you want to give them twenty dollars afterward? Of course not.


Photo: Google earth
Disney faces an $864 million dollar version of the same matter. The state of Florida just glove-slapped Disney.
In the wake of that action, many wondered whether Disney would cancel the Lake Nona project. The answer is apparently no.
A New Development with Lake Nona


Photo: Disney
According to reporting by the Orlando Business Journal, Disney completed the paperwork for an application.
Specifically, on January 18th, Disney filed a specific parcel master plan for Lake Nona.


Photo: centralfloridaprimerealestate.com
This plan suggests that Disney will construct a 1.8 million-square-foot office complex on the grounds of Lake Nona PD, Parcel 20A.
Nobody working for Florida’s government has moved on this yet. However, that part appears to be a formality. Even after Florida’s government voted to dissolve Reedy Creek, legislators indicated that Disney wouldn’t lose its Lake Nona tax break.
Florida wants these 2,000 jobs to supercharge the local economy. After all, the current median family income in Orlando, Florida, is around $59,000.


Photo: Getty
A new batch of $120,000 annual salaries will energize all local businesses.
So, the Lake Nona project remains a win for Florida. We just weren’t sure whether Disney and its returning CEO, Bob Iger, would view the issue the same way.


Photo: PRNewsFoto/The Walt Disney Co.
Apparently, that answer is yes. Disney filed the paperwork mere days ago.
Last summer, a Disney official had hedged a bit on this headquarters. The individual stated that the new timeline for completion wasn’t until 2026.


Photo: Raftermen 2018
This new filing suggests that Disney has decided to move forward with Lake Nona.
At a minimum, Disney will file the paperwork and evaluate how much bureaucratic pushback they receive in the process.


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That answer may determine whether Lake Nona eventually becomes Disney’s new headquarters.
At the moment, we’re trending toward yes, though.


Photo: MickeyBlog
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Feature Photo: Photo: Lake Nona