Disney is canceling a $1 billion project that would have moved 2,000 jobs to Central Florida. This is because of a disagreement with Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has passed multiple bills that target the company because it opposed one of his core policies.
Josh D’Amaro, who is in charge of Disney’s parks, sent an email to workers on Thursday saying that the Lake Nona Town Center development in Orlando, which had been put on hold and received criticism from within the company, has been officially canceled and that employees won’t be moving from California to Florida.
“Since this project was first announced, a lot has changed, including new leadership and different business conditions,” D’Amaro told the Los Angeles Times. “Because of these changes, we have decided not to build the campus.” “Making this choice wasn’t easy, but I think it’s the right one. We will no longer ask our employees to move because of this.”
Two people who knew about Disney’s decision told the New York Times that “the company’s fight with Mr. DeSantis and his allies in the Florida Legislature played a big role” in the decision to cancel the Lake Nona project.
The office of DeSantis said that the project at Lake Nona was canceled because of the way the market worked.
“Disney announced the possibility of a Lake Nona campus almost two years ago,” said Taryn Fenske, who is in charge of communications for DeSantis.
“The project never went anywhere, and the state didn’t know if it would ever happen. Given the company’s financial problems, falling market cap, and falling stock price, it’s not surprising that they would change how they run their business and end projects that didn’t work.
The cancellation is a big blow to the economy of Central Florida. Many well-paid theme park designers, whom Disney calls “Imaginers,” were among the jobs that were going to be moved to Florida.
DeSantis and Disney are in a fight because Disney rejected HB 1557, which is called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by critics but is called the “Parental Rights in Education” law by the government.
He called a special session of the Legislature to end Disney’s right to govern itself and take over the special district that runs the company’s sites in Central Florida. This was in response to the company’s position.
Shortly before that law went into effect, however, Disney pushed through two contracts—a development agreement and a declaration of restrictive covenants—that let the company avoid state oversight. This prompted DeSantis to ask the inspector general to look into the agreements and pass a law to make them invalid. He also signed a bill that put state inspectors in charge of Disney’s train system.
The oversight board that DeSantis put together also voted against Disney’s moves, which led the company to file a lawsuit.
Disney’s claim says that DeSantis “targeted a government campaign of retaliation” against the company. It says that DeSantis is threatening the company’s business and going against its constitutional rights. It calls the government’s moves “patently retaliatory, patently anti-business, and patently unconstitutional.”
The case says that DeSantis broke Disney’s constitutional rights in five different ways. These include two violations of free speech, a violation of property rights, a violation of due process, and a violation of the contracts clause.
Disney CEO Bob Iger has also spoken out against what the state has done to his business.
“Does the government want us to put more money into businesses, hire more people, and pay more taxes, or not?” Iger said last week during a results call.
In D’Amaro’s email, he says that the company still plans to spend $17 billion on Disney World over the next 10 years. This would bring about 13,000 jobs to the area.
“I hope we can,” he replied.
On hearing the news, the campaign of his rival, former President Donald Trump, said that DeSantis had been “caught in the mouse trap.”
“Today, Ron DeSantis single-handedly cost the state of Florida nearly $1 billion in investments and over 2,000 jobs with an average salary of $120,000 because he was too weak to fight for his state,” the campaign wrote in an email blast. “Ron DeSantis’ failed war on Disney hasn’t helped his weak shadow campaign much, and now it’s hurting Florida’s economy even more.”
