Disney cancels planned Florida campus in Lake Nona - ABC News
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Disney announced on Thursday that it canceled plans for a new campus near Orlando, Florida.
The development was planned for the Lake Nona region.
"Given the considerable changes that have occurred since the announcement of this project, including new leadership and changing business conditions, we have decided not to move forward with construction of the campus," Disney said in a statement.
People gather at the Magic Kingdom theme park before the "Festival of Fantasy" parade at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., July 30, 2022.Octavio Jones/Reuters, FILE
However, the company affirmed its commitment to additional expansion.
"We have plans to invest $17 billion and create 13,000 jobs over the next ten years," the memo said. "I hope we're able to do so."
The Lake Nona campus, announced in 2021, was set to host employees from Disney's Parks, Experiences and Products division. The company previously delayed the opening of the campus to 2026.
As part of the plans, Disney asked roughly 2,000 Southern California-based employees to relocate to the planned 60-acre campus. The company will no longer be calling for the employees to relocate, the memo on Thursday said.
"For those who have already moved, we will talk to you individually about your situation, including the possibility of moving you back," the memo added.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Disney is the parent company of ABC News.
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As I expected Disney cancels 2000 new FL jobs with the accompanying taxes and local business spending AND the billion that would have been spent on construction.
Good job DeSantis and sycophants!
Um... This is Disney's comms teams using DeSantis as an excuse to shield cost cutting related to subpar performance. Its the cheapest chum available.
The Starcruiser Hotel was a massive failure, streaming losses keep piling up and Iger was brought back to cut costs and restructure. Chapeks plans are being axed. Disney isn't doing well. Have you noticed the thousands of people being laid off?
CEOs get fired, cuts happen.
Exactly. They are trying to portray this as a payback for what DeSantis is doing, but it has nothing to do with it.
Simply a business decision in a poor business friendly national economy.
I just saw they announced the closing of the StarCruiser Hotel as part of this newsdump. Cost a billion dollars to build and was only open for a year and change.
Whoops! Must be DeSantis' fault.
It's still a 100 room hotel in a location that is frequently out of rooms.
The concept was too narrow. There aren't enough Star War couples who could afford a three day "cruise" for $4,800.00 or $6,000 including two kids.
For the record Iger approved the hotel/cruise/star wars concept in 2017, not Chapek.
It was just one of many things that bit Chapek in the ass, like the pandemic.
For all of the partisan misinformation about Chapek, Disney profits were very good under him.
I don't disagree with anything you posted there other than they can cut costs, reverse a shitty decision and still blame the governor. It's an easy cheap shot at DeSantis and they would be stupid not to take it with the lawsuits pending.
It's not after September, it's being closed.
artisan misinformation
It's partisan misinformation to point out he was fired? Is it partisan misinformation that he was fired because shareholders were not happy with the company's performance? Or was he fired because Disney was doing too well?
And what happens to a hotel after it's Star Wars theme is "closed"? Is it reduced to rubble by space lasers? or repurposed into another Disney owned hotel?
Think corporate.
Not at all.
True, Wall Street was unhappy with the 2022 4th qtr numbers. Disney profits only increased 3.7% over 2021 profit to $24 Billion. Hardly a reason to fire him.
He was fired because he fumbled the corporate response to DeSantis' "Dont say Gay" initiatives and pissed off a lot of Disney employees. Then he over corrected and drew the ire of Desantis. That was the last straw and this is the mess Iger inherited. Chapek cooked the books and got caught. Chapek called season ticket holders "undesirables". Chapek froze pay and demanded longer hours. Disney + languished under Chapek and hasn't changed under Iger. He was in over his head before he started then shut down everything due to COVID.
Chapek eventually alienated everyone, even Iger.
This gauntlet throw down is just hilarious!!
This has nothing to do with the spat with DeSantis. From the article
"including new leadership and changing business conditions"
Maybe Iger decided this was not a good idea in a Biden economy not friendly to businesses and business expansions. ,
Or Iger is going to risk being sued for breaching his fiduciary duty to shareholders and make decisions that hurt Disney's bottom line and future viability in order to spite DeSantis. Harming his company and putting himself in jeopardy are totally reasonable responses by Iger.
harming his state and putting floridians in jeopardy are totally reasonable responses by wussolini
HAHAHAHA! So how does not spending billions of dollars breach his fiduciary duty?
Sure it doesn't...
"For those who have already moved, we will talk to you individually about your situation, including the possibility of moving you back," the memo added.
Translation, you all are fucked if you don't want to wear the Mickey costume in the Florida heat, we have huge bonuses to pay out for being dumbasses and not understanding the demographic we cater too. Thank god there is a segment of society dunb enough to blame De Santis so we don't get held completely responsible for our bad decisions.
LOL
The Lake Nona project was delayed last summer to start in 2026. There are a number of things to consider with this move by Disney. The first is the loss of revenue to the state of Florida the loss of construction jobs, vendor spending on the now scrapped $1 billion facility. Add to that the loss of thousands of staffers and their families their housing and consumer spending will cost the state tens of billions of dollars long term.
The fact that Disney is willing to walk away from $550 million in tax credits from Florida should tell you that this is a serious play by Disney to show the Florida business community what is really at stake.
So the drama goes on and The Mouse swings a big stick.
None of that matters to the entrenched.
gay cartoon characters, bad. authoritarian white male leaders, good.
Disney's $207 Billion in assets, bad. Disney's 2021 & 2022 $23Billion in profits is not enough /S
And in the meantime, DeSantis/Florida is spending $1290 an hour in legal fees trying to figure out how Disney found that loophole in the Reedy Creek battle. Mr Garcia a DeSantis appointe to the Reedy Creek board told small business owners on Disney property that they were going to raise their taxes to pay for the lawsuit...Now that is a brilliant move by Garcia/DeSantis/Florida. /s
This was probably Iger's easiest call since it saves a bunch of cash Disney was losing on Chapek's idiot spending spree. I see that some of the shareholders filed suit against Chapek after this last shareholder's meeting.
When the government is openly hostile, it's time to leave.
As someone who once represented a client in a business dispute with Disney, and has had friends and relatives employed by Disney, I can say with absolute certainty that the last thing the Disney Corporation is is "woke".
it's just another example of the fracture exposed between maga scum and establishment republicans. disney is a conservative corporation.
Disney is definitely a conservative corporation.
ultra conservative. I remember when walt wasn't letting people with long hair enter disneyland.
yeah, probably nothing has changed in the 56 years since his death.
Disney is also building 1400 low cost apartments close to Disney World which will be available to its employees.
does that mean Disney doesn't pay its employees enough to rent existing apartments?
that's cool. isn't the park a little ways from town still? I haven't been back there for over 20 years.
They are going to build the units close to Disney World. Orlando has seen housing prices and apartment rents skyrocket in the last couple of years. Rents have gone up 30% in the last two years and there still aren't enough being built to mitigate the problem. The mim wage in Florida is $11 and going to $12 an hour soon and the minimum wage at Disney is $15 an hour and they just reached an agreement to raise that $15 to $18 per hour. So Disney is doing more than its share to help the people/employees in the Orlando area. Disney is leading the way in wages for the service industry in central Florida. In fact, Universal has announced they will be building 1,000 low cost units. Both Disney and Universal will rent to their employees and to non-employees as well, thus helping the over problem that exists in the Orlando area.
Sounds like Florida is booming. That's what a lot of oil companies here do as well. Develop land to rent to their employees.
Florida is booming but there is still a shortage of workers. I heard that some of the oil companies do the same. It's good for both the employer and employee, kind of going back in time when there were many ''company towns''.
I read an article a couple of weeks ago about Telsa talking about building employee housing outside of Austin.
Any particular sector or across the board? I wouldn't doubt it. That facility is "yuge"..
Across the board but particularly in the service industry and agriculture. Both are very important to the state economy.
I just looked up photos of the Telsa facility in Austin, it is a monster.
This year Disneyland in Anaheim is having a 3 day Pride event in June.
Orlando was considered but under the circumstances, people decided to push their
tourism dollars to a friendlier state.
Florida has become dangerous for LGBT...
Disney just announced a massive investment and upgrade of Disneyland in Anaheim, CA.
Disneyland says renovation plans could bring $253 million annually to Anaheim’s economy