Disney’s Lake Nona Cancelation Has a Ripple Effect in the Surrounding Area

Since the Walt Disney Company decided earlier this month to cancel its relocation of 2,000 jobs to its new Lake Nona campus in Florida, the effects that the cancelation would have on the local community is starting to come into focus. Besides the $1 billion that Disney would have spent in constructing its new office campus, there are also the ancillary jobs that go along with supporting 2,000 workers that are now gone from the economy in Central Florida.

When Disney made the announcement earlier this month, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demmings called the move “unfortunate” and blamed it on Disney’s feud with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. When Chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products Josh D’Amaro made the announcement, he cited the “changing business climate in Florida” for the cancelation.

While there is no doubt that Disney’s feud with Governor DeSantis played a part, it wasn’t the final nail in the coffin. There were several issues with the project, including a change in CEO. When Disney CEO Bob Iger returned, he tried his best to rid the Disney Company of anything his predecessor Bob Chapek touched, and this was one of those projects.

But when the project was announced, construction began creating living spaces for all those new employees. According to Lisa McNatt, a director of market analytics in Orlando for the CoStar Group, 2,100 new apartments have been completed in the Lake Nona area since Disney announced, with another 1,200 currently being built.

The vacancy rate in the area jumped to 16 percent during the first quarter of 2023, up from 3.9 percent during the last quarter of 2022.

The Disney project would have also affected the downtown area of Lake Nona. The Disney Company had 60 acres set aside for its office campus, which was to be surrounded by shops and restaurants, most of which have already been built. With Disney pulling out, there’s no telling what will happen in that area.

McNatt told the Wall Street Journal:

Adding the Disney campus would have been a transformational development project for Lake Nona. It would have resulted in a strong uptick in higher-income jobs that could have benefited the Orlando area at large. 

The jobs coming to the area would have been high-paying office jobs. The average salary of a Disney employee that would have been moving to Lake Nona would have been $120,000. That is a lot of tax revenue and spending that must now be made up for in the local economy.

The Tavistock Group, which sold the property to Disney, can repurchase it if Disney does not meet certain construction milestones within seven years. The Walt Disney Company paid $46 million for the property two years ago.

So, it remains to be seen what will happen to the property near Walt Disney World, what will happen to the community without these jobs, and the revenue they would have brought in. We will hopefully have an answer later this year about how Disney’s new plans will affect Central Florida.

We will continue to update this story at Disney Fanatic.