Welcome to Lake Nona, Florida, a
new master-planned community located inside the city limits of Orlando, a few miles
south of the Orlando International Airport. Here you’ll find medical campuses, lots of expensive
real estate, and cattle ranches. A mix of the old Orlando and new, right now you are looking at
the future site of Disney’s massive regional campus that could, in the future, be capable
of supporting tens of thousands of employees. Currently 60 acres of unassuming Florida
land, with a pond, some barbed wire fencing, and livestock nearby. Already you can see the
signs of bigger things to come for this community, as it goes from primarily medical campuses, to the
home of aviation companies, autonomous vehicles, and the largest entertainment company
in the world. This is a look at Disney’s mission to establish a tax friendly base of
operations, as they begin their move to Florida. As far back as 2019, Disney was already exploring
moving employees from California to Florida. In December of 2019, Disney applied for a tax
credit from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. In the application, Disney detailed
a plan to build a massive new campus somewhere in the state, which in total they estimated to cost
864 million dollars. In early 2020, this Florida tax credit was approved, meaning if Disney
does choose to relocate employees to Florida, building that campus in the process, in exchange,
they are eligible for over a half a billion dollars of tax credits from the state over the next
20 years. As the events of 2020 unfolded, many companies joined Disney in a search
towards more business and tax friendly pastures. Many large institutions including banks and other
large corporations began announcing moves to the southeastern United States. For Disney, 2020
further catalyzed their need for someplace new, as public clashes with the State of California,
particularly in their failed attempts to reopen Disneyland, showed how little of a grapple
the company had on the governing bodies that affected their operations. Meanwhile,
back on the east coast, despite the myriad of companies announcing job relocations to the
southeast, Orlando, Florida, in particular, was not blessed with any of these massive employee
relocations. That was the case at least until this July, when Disney officially announced the first
relocation of employees from their headquarters in California to Orlando, Florida. To start, roughly
2,000 employees will be heading to Florida. Most of these 2,000 consist of Imagineers
as well as other Parks-related employees. This means, a large portion of Parks Creative,
who currently work nearest to Disneyland, are soon going to be working 30 minutes from
Walt Disney World, which many Parks fans hope could mean some increased creative focus on
parks that previously have been created by some Imagineers some two thousand miles away. Already a
historic change in Disney’s operation on its own, based on the scope of Disney’s just-purchased
land for a 60 acre regional campus, moving Imagineers is likely just the beginning.
Here we are walking along one of Lake Nona’s main thoroughfares arriving at the start of
the future Helios Boulevard, currently only open to construction traffic. West of Helios is
a rather unassuming grassy field. From above, we discover in the middle this field is a large
pond. What could one do with this space? Well, Dynamic Campus, LLC which is a known front
for the Disney Parks and Resorts, just spent 46 million dollars acquiring this 60 acre lot,
for what is slated to be a new regional campus, as Disney calls it. A regional campus might not sound
like anything too earth-shattering, but looking at the preliminary site data, we discover this plot
of land is capable of holding 1.8 million square feet of office space, which is enough space
for 20,000 employees. The specific area Disney chose is next door to a rapidly developing Town
Center home to fitness venues, dozens of corporate offices, hotels, upscale dining, and is a short
walk away from massive residential developments, inside and bordering Lake Nona itself, not to
mention being minutes away from the Orlando International Airport, with planes flying
over Disney’s land on a consistent basis. It’s important to establish the massive scope
of the area Disney is choosing to place their new so-called regional campus. Because in Disney’s
public statements so far, they’ve been insistent on downplaying the extent of their business here,
highlighting that the 2,000 employees set to move only account for 5% of the California workforce.
In truth, 2,000 employees is much more than 5% of Disney’s corporate workforce in the state,
and 2,000 employees is likely the most Disney can move at once, if they were looking to set up a
new base of operations outside of California. And that’s because corporate relocations take serious
time and effort, with the process of relocating employees being largely an infrastructure problem.
Looking at the 60 acre patch of grass and water Disney’s just purchased in Florida, it’ll take
significant manpower to turn this into something on par with the infrastructure Disney currently
enjoys in Burbank and Glendale. Not only is there the matter of employees having a place to work,
a process that’ll be completed one building, and one batch of employees relocated at a time.
Just as important, as demonstrated this past year, is a place for employees to live. And here
too, Disney’s actions are pointing towards a much larger project than what they’re saying
to the media. Tavistock Development Company is the real estate firm that is building out
the already successful community of Lake Nona, where Disney’s regional campus is to be housed.
Now, the same company is in the early stages of developing a neighboring, age-restricted community
called Sunbridge. The Villages, which you may have heard of, is a huge age restricted community
well north of Orlando, along the Florida Turnpike. Here, southeast of Orlando, Sunbridge
is shaping up to become something very similar, except this community will be located minutes
from the Orlando International Airport, the neighboring community of Lake Nona, and is only
a half hour from the Walt Disney World Resort. A month after Disney announced the first move of
employees, the Orlando Business Journal reported Disney was in talks with Tavistock to build an
age-restricted community inside of Sunbridge. This could provide Disney with a place to house some
of their relocated employees, alleviating stress on the existing real estate market in Orlando, as
well as potentially offer Disney additional sources of revenue in the area, with demand for age-restricted
communities in Florida projected to skyrocket over the next 10 years. Sunbridge has the capacity
for almost 23,000 single family homes, 14,000 apartment units, and 6,000 hotel rooms. Sounds
like a good source of housing infrastructure just minutes away from Lake Nona, where Disney is
beginning to develop their billion dollar regional complex physically capable of housing the bulk of
Disney’s current corporate staff in California. As you can see from our newly obtained drone
footage of the Sunbridge area, this place is going to be huge, and is being built out at a
rapid pace every single day. The future of Orlando is looking quite exciting from what is already
being built in this future hub of enterprise, Lake Nona, and looking at Disney’s land here, it
is my belief what today might be referred to as a regional facility, could, in the future, not just
be home to Imagineers and various Parks employees, but also other divisions like Consumer Products
for example, and then the question becomes, what other segments in Burbank may come to reside
in this tax friendly, lower traffic, lower cost of living, billion dollar campus? Surely Disney
will always have studio employees in California, that’s where the sound stages are, that’s where
Hollywood is, but beyond studios and Disneyland employees, this massive new campus could enable
virtually any segment of Disney to relocate, and begin to call Florida home. Let me know your
thoughts on Disney’s land acquisition here, and what it could mean, especially for us Walt Disney
World fans. It could be a game changer. Thank you so much for watching, from the Mickey Views Magic
Studio, this is Brayden, Have a Magical Day!
