Walt Disney World, district, agree to $17 billion development plan

This is getting a lot of attention, but it's not really something that was ever really at risk. At the end of the day, the local board is just another jurisdiction with planning authority. If the land owners want to build stuff and it doesn't run against any particular zoning or environmental regulations, you can't easily tell them "no." This is probably 10x true considering there's only one real taxpayer in this case.

Given the political nature of the revamped board, I'm not so sure one could say that it was never really at risk. I get your point, and in a normal world you'd be right. However, never second guess the petty nature of today's GOP/MAGA crowd.

At the end of the day, we're back to (almost) where we knew we would be. The development plan is moving forward. Now the questions will quickly fall to timing of build out and whether this truly represents park number 5.

Saw this story. Low income in Florida is considered below $77k per year? That’s crazy.

Hey, I'm low income!

Given the political nature of the revamped board, I'm not so sure one could say that it was

The other way around since Iger came back, as in Disney holding the carrot… and Desantis getting smacked in his presidential bid, and other law suits.

Pause or cancel most things in FL, and pump up DisneyForward in Anaheim, and tout investment at foreign parks, and rub it in Desantis face in the press.

Post Epic opening the taps would of opened wider anyway, but Iger is king of timing

Planning authorities that arbitrarily deny stuff tend to get sued and lose. I mean, they're not building a nuclear power plant. 🙂

I believe they still could build a nuclear plant (or at least they could until the District was dissolved). If I remember, the legislation that approved the Reedy Creek Improvement District expressly gave them the authority to build a nuclear plant AND an airport. Old timers will remember that there was an airstrip just beyond the TTC toll booths and to the right. The pavement for that airstrip is still there, but I think it is just used as an outdoor storage area now.

Funny aside...Disney Imagineers developed a musical "rumble strip" process that created different depts of strips in the pavement that would create different musical tones. They tested this process at the airstrip and, for a brief time, cast members could drive on it and hear "Zip-Ah-Dee-Doo-Dah". I think they abandoned the idea when they realized that large amounts of vehicles would be doing different speeds, creating a bit of a hazard in a high traffic area.

To Jeff's point, the planning authority COULD deny development plans, but unless they had legal grounds to do so it would almost certainly be overturned in court. Courts have been spending a LOT of time trying to clean up the messes DeSantis has been making of late.

Jeff wrote "Planning authorities that arbitrarily deny stuff tend to get sued and lose. I mean, they're not building a nuclear power plant. 🙂"

this is Floriduh, so my point stands.

Either way, glad this is moving forward, now we'll see if they can build stuff faster than it would take to build a nuclear power plant. (looking at you Tron).

I mean, wahoo skipper is a city manager in Flori-duh.

You know, I've lived here now for over 26 years. There was no "duh" when we moved down. It came later, and if I were to identify when we started seeing that I'm sure I would be accused of being partisan.

CreditWh0re:

Either way, glad this is moving forward, now we'll see if they can build stuff faster than it would take to build a nuclear power plant. (looking at you Tron).

As long as there isn't another pandemic in the middle of construction, I think the speed to build won't be too bad.

Make Florida Great Again.

in a bit of sheer coincidence, my “non-expiring” ticket media (that did say expiring 2099), just popped up in the app as expiring 12/31/2030. (long backstory, not worth repeating here). I wonder if 5th park has a place holder for (calendar) Q1 2031?

I think that 2030 date has been around a while as a placeholder for various "no expire" tickets.

true, but before I used it last week, it said 2099. After I scanned in last week it reset to 2030. (and I’m joking but it does make for a good conspiracy theory).