Could Disney Move Out Of Florida? No Way, Experts Say.

Should the “most magical place on earth” find a new address?

As the feud between Disney and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) escalates, former president Donald Trump suggested Walt Disney World might want to consider relocating out of Central Florida.

So have – with varying degrees of seriousness – 2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, a handful of North Carolina state legislators, Colo. Gov. Jared Polis (D), liberal commentator Keith Olbermann and countless online opinion-givers.

The suggestions and outright invitations have trickled in during a Disney-DeSantis dispute that dates back to last year, starting when the company spoke out against a law limiting discussion of gender identity or sexual orientation in schools. DeSantis, who is seen as a leading candidate to be the GOP’s presidential nominee, and legislators moved quickly to remove the company’s self-governing status. The conflict escalated to a lawsuit this week, with Disney claiming the governor was violating its free speech.

If Disney were to flee, Florida would lose a visitor magnet and major moneymaker: In 2019, the four theme parks drew nearly 60 million guests combined, according to an industry estimate. And the company said the resort contributed more than $780 million in state and local taxes for fiscal 2021.

“This isn’t difficult,” Olbermann wrote in a March tweet. “Move all the irreplaceable items out of the current DisneyWorld. Rebuild in the Carolinas or Puerto Rico. Then invite [DeSantis] to Disney’s Orlando facility and burn the place down while he watches.”

It would actually be extremely difficult, experts say. Impossibly so.

“There isn’t enough tea in China or gold in the ground to get Disney to leave Florida,” said Dennis Speigel, president of the consulting firm International Theme Park Services. He said Disney created a global destination for leisure travel. “And there’s no place on the planet that even comes close.”

The Walt Disney World Resort represents billions of dollars of investment over more than half a century, starting out when the Orlando area was “alligator farms and orange groves,” Speigel said.

The vast complex sits on 47 square miles in Orange and Osceola counties, encompassing four theme parks, two water parks, 31 hotels with about 29,000 rooms, a 220-acre sports complex and an outdoor mall. The properties are linked by roads, lakes, an elevated railway and an aerial gondola system; Disney World employs more than 75,000 workers, which the company calls cast members.

Attractions include the 2019 addition Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, featuring a 100-foot replica of the Millennium Falcon. Epcot’s iconic sphere, Spaceship Earth, stretches 180 feet high. At the Magic Kingdom park, the Florida resort’s first, Cinderella Castle stands at 189 feet.

“Too big to move,” said Richard Foglesong, professor emeritus of political science at Rollins College in nearby Winter Park and author of “Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando.”

The newest theme park, Animal Kingdom, is home to roughly 2,000 animals, plus a Mount Everest-themed coaster, 145-foot artificial tree and an entire land themed around “Avatar.”

“It’s taken Disney 52 years in Florida to get where it is,” Speigel said.

Disney did not respond to a question about whether or when it would consider moving. But the company has detailed its contributions and commitment to Florida online and in public comments.

“We love the state of Florida and I think that’s reflected in not only how much we’ve invested over the last 50 years but how much we’ve given back,” CEO Bob Iger said during the company’s annual shareholder meeting earlier this month. He said plans call for more than $17 billion in investment at the Florida resort over the next 10 years, which would create 13,000 new direct jobs, bring more people to the state and generate more taxes.

“Any action that thwarts those effort simply to retaliate for a position the company took sounds not just anti-business, but it sounds anti-Florida,” he said.

Experts say there are endless reasons Disney wouldn’t want to move, just from a financial perspective.

Kevin Barbee, a “parkitect” who leads teams in creating theme parks and entertainment venues globally, said in an email that the cost to re-create Walt Disney World elsewhere could top $50 billion – if the company could get enough land at a “seriously low” price.

“The investment made by Disney into the land, buildings, and attractions in Florida would be hard to repeat in another location in the US with comfortable weather year round,” he said. “And, if landowners found out it was Disney buying, the prices would skyrocket!”

Barbee, who has worked with companies including Universal Studios and Six Flags, said it would also be an incredibly drawn-out process, requiring several years to acquire land and at least five years to design, build and fabricate theme parks and water parks with “an army” of about 2,500 designers, architects, engineers and others for the parks alone.

After all that money and effort, Disney would just end up with a copy of what it has in Florida, Len Testa, president of the theme-park trip-planning site Touring Plans and co-author of the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World, said in an email.

“That seems like not a great use of time or money,” he wrote. “And there’s absolutely no chance – zero – that it’s going to happen right now.”

Testa said, however, that he expects the company has a “30-year plan buried somewhere in the Disney corporate vaults” in case climate change renders Florida “too inhospitable for year-round tourism.”

The money and time reasons to stay put don’t even factoring in the surroundings: a busy international airport that just added a new $2.8 billion terminal; five other theme and water parks that also draw millions of visitors a year; tourist attractions throughout the region; hundreds of hotels and thousands of restaurants. And then there’s the factor you can’t pay for: weather that allows visitors to visit year-round.

The special taxing district that the state established decades ago – and which has been under attack since last year – has also been beneficial for the company.

Foglesong said Disney asked for everything it could possibly want, “from permission to build a nuclear power plant to planning and zoning authority and more,” when it decided to build its biggest resort in Florida.

“They knew that, once dug in, they could no longer credibly threaten to leave; their leverage would be greatly diminished,” he said. “Governor DeSantis and his allies know this too. So do Donald Trump and Nikki Haley when they facetiously urge Disney to abandon Florida. Such calls are mere digs at DeSantis.”

If the area no longer had Disney, Testa said the result would be “an economic nuclear winter.”

“Like, the city would survive, but plenty of people would leave,” he said. “Those who remain would need to rebuild the economy.”

(c) 2023, The Washington Post · Hannah Sampson