Reputation is everything in business. If people believe what you say, they will continue to work with you. But if they don’t, any company, no matter how long they have been in business, people will trust them. The same can be said for the business climate in a particular area. If a site is reliably friendly to business, the chances are better a company may want to relocate there.
Related: Feud with Disney is Starting to Hurt DeSantis’ Hometown
For decades, Florida has been one of those reliable states for business. When Walt Disney built a Theme Park there more than 50 years ago, the state gave him everything he could have ever wanted. Disney signed a contract allowing it to govern itself using the Reedy Creek Improvement District. And for decades, Disney World provided the state with jobs and tax revenue in exchange for that district.
But then, Governor Ron DeSantis decided to change everything. DeSantis worked with the Florida Legislature to strip away Disney’s self-governing powers after the company’s response to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. The entire mess has ended up in Federal Court, with both sides suing each other. And now, local businesses are concerned about the long-term ramifications of this feud.
The Walt Disney Company decided to cancel its Lake Nona project in May, and since then, real estate sales declined by 3.1 percent. Well below the national average but alarming to the area that has seen sustained rapid growth over the past three years. Besides real estate, there is concern about losing 2,000 high-paying, white-collar jobs that Disney would have provided.
Local real estate agent Jervaine “Will” Huie of LPT Realty told CNBC:
I would just hope that it wouldn’t be a pattern of losing jobs in an area that I’ve lived here my whole life. There is not a lot of high paying jobs in Orlando. Cost of living has skyrocketed.
The Central Florida area around Disney also has issues with infrastructure and skyrocketing homeowners insurance, making local business owners leery of investing in the area.
John Boyd of The Boyd Company told CNBC:
Florida’s biggest challenge is infrastructure, and this affordability and insurance ticking time bomb, A Florida homeowner policy is now approaching $5,000 a year. That’s over triple the national average.
For now, Central Florida businesses are just concerned about the business climate in the state and the cancelation of Disney’s Lake Nona project. Still, that concern continues to grow as Gov Ron DeSantis and Disney fight over the future of Walt Disney World.
A federal court will ultimately decide the ending of the Disney feud, but the business community wants to know that Florida’s problems will be settled before attacking Disney again.
