Why Disney is stuck in Florida
- Disney World sued Ron DeSantis last month to keep control of its self-governing status in Florida.
- The company is locked in a monthslong bitter feud with the Florida governor.
Disney escalated its ongoing feud with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week when the company announced it was abandoning plans to build a nearly $1 billion corporate campus in the state.
The mega corporation and 2024 presidential hopeful have been locked in an increasingly heated fight for more than a year, but even amid growing animosity, Disney is essentially stuck in The Sunshine State indefinitely.
A leading expert on Disney World's history in Florida told Insider that the amusement park is tied to its Florida home, due to its expensive operations and sprawling size.
"They're stuck there," Richard Foglesong, the author of the book "Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando," told Insider. "And Florida is stuck with them."
Disney can't move
While facilities such as factories can easily be moved, Walt Disney's World's sprawling, 27,520 acres made up of brick-and-mortar hotels, rides, stages, shops, and restaurants, is simply too vast, he said. The costs of building the new infrastructure would be astronomical.
The theme park and resort is Florida's largest attraction, but it gets a lot out of Florida, too. The self-governing privileges it enjoys — the ones at question in the lawsuit — mean Disney doesn't have to run its plans by zoning commissions or building-inspection departments, unlike rival theme parks, saving them time and money.
When Disney first came to Florida in the 1960s, the state didn't have much going for it, and struggled to recruit businesses there. The company knew it could ask for a lot.
"That's what Disney realized, and they wanted to get all their privileges up front and lock them in," Foglesong said of the decades-long provision, "because they figured they could never get that again."
On top of that, numerous small businesses in the area rely on Disney because of the tourism it brings to the state. That reality came into sharp view in a board meeting last month, as small business owners in the district housing Disney expressed their concerns about the possibility of facing new taxes and tolls.
Disney doesn't even have the luxury of cutting off its investment in Florida, Foglesong continued. In fact, Disney plans to spend $17 billion in the state over the next decade.
Foglesong said that Disney did so because it must continually refresh its offerings, necessary given that 70% of visitors to the theme park are returning guests.
"It's a compliment but it's also threatening, because how do you get them to come back again to see the same stuff? You have got to have new rides and attractions," he said.
Other Republicans are taking DeSantis to task for his dedication to fighting with Disney
In spite of Disney's immovable location, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley last month proposed a solution for Walt Disney World in the ongoing battle: Just move to South Carolina.
Haley, who was South Carolina governor from 2011 to 2017, said elected officials in the Palmetto State would welcome Disney's business. She would be "happy," she said on Fox News, to introduce them to the governor and the legislature.
She then followed up on Twitter about her offer. "We've got great weather, great people, and it's always a great day in South Carolina! SC's not woke, but we're not sanctimonious about it either," she said.
Haley was using the word "sanctimonious" as a thinly veiled swipe against DeSantis, given that former President Donald Trump has used the nickname "DeSanctimonious" against the governor. The dig didn't escape Never Back Down, the super PAC that's supporting a DeSantis presidential run.
"Embracing woke corporations and copying Trump's lame attack at the same time? Someone's trying really hard to audition for VP!" the group wrote on Twitter.
Haley's comments came as Disney escalated its feud with DeSantis by filing a lawsuit to maintain control over its land. The lawsuit alleges that DeSantis was retaliating against Disney after it vowed to fight a school curriculum bill — HB 1557, Parental Rights in Education Act, which detractors have called the "Don't Say Gay" bill — that limited how gender and sexual orientation is taught in public schools.
She isn't the only presidential candidate to criticize DeSantis, who hasn't yet formally announced a presidential run. Trump mocked DeSantis for doubling down against Disney, and former Vice President Mike Pence, who is set to announce his decision about a 2024 run soon, criticized the actions as being antithetical to the values of conservatism.
"You don't use the heavy hand of government to punish a business," GOP presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas, said.
May 18, 2023: A previous version of this story ran on April 26, 2023. This article has since been updated to include Disney's plans to abandon its corporate campus in Florida.