News Reedy Creek Improvement District and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District

[GoofGoof]

For anyone actually interested in the real history of the district I’ll keep posting this link:

Reposting

https://ir.law.fsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1123&context=lr

I’m giving the benefit of the doubt people actually are interested. I think the conversation would be more constructive with a better understanding of history.

 

[Brian]

In 2023, Can you name any similar project that does as you claim at this scale?

No, it's all hypothetical. Disney bought Fox for 71.3 billion. I'm quite certain they are financially capable of developing rural land into a destination of a similar size to WDW without government assistance if they wished to do so, at least in terms of sheer land size, not necessarily everything that exists at WDW today. Though, as @GoofGoof wisely and rightly pointed out, corporations often accept tax incentives to bring jobs to a state, so there would likely be some sort of deal between Disney and any state they would hypothetically wish to bring a new, WDW-like destination to.

 

[GoofGoof]

In 2023, Can you name any similar project that does as you claim at this scale?

No, it's all hypothetical. Disney bought Fox for 71.3 billion. I'm quite certain they are financially capable of developing rural land into a destination of a similar size (at least in terms of land) to WDW if they wished to do so. Though, as @GoofGoof wisely and rightly pointed out, corporations often accept tax incentives to bring jobs to a state, so there would likely be some sort of deal between Disney and any state they would hypothetically wish to bring a new, WDW-like destination to.

Look no further than the NFL. Every one of those teams is worth billions with billionaire owners yet only 2 stadiums in the last 20 years has been built with 100% private funding (LA and MetLife in NJ). The Raiders moved to Vegas and took nearly a billion in public funding. Every one of those stadiums could have been privately financed but each time a city or state kicked in they did so for the huge economic benefit. A WDW clone would be worth much, much more than any Football stadium so I can’t imagine any state wouldn’t cough up a small fortune in incentives to attract Disney. Maybe not Montana if you believe the plot of Yellowstone is based in reality

 

[mikejs78]

If Disney had told the state "before" they estabilished RCID in 1967...that EPCOT would NEVER be built and that only a theme park would be built...the state would have said "nope".

Not historically accurate. When going before the legislature in 1967 (after Walt died), the legislature was really pushing to get a "Disneyland East", and the plans were for a vacation resort. Epcot was a far off possibility, but it was not the leading part of the discussion in 1967. Everyone forgets, the area WDW is in now was basically useless swampland.

Disney would not have been built if RCID hadn't happened. And FL wanted Disney and all of the tourism it would bring.

 

[GoofGoof]

Proposed Universal Studios theme park in Frisco set for votes on zoning and incentives

Universal Parks & Resorts plans to build a family-focused theme park with rides, shows and a 300-room hotel, on a 97-acre plot of land off the Dallas North Tollway.

www.wfaa.com

To add to the discussion on whether RCID would be needed today, here’s and interesting summary of the new park Universal is building in TX. It only covers 93 acres and is expected to add 1,000 jobs. The local government approved a development agreement as well as economic incentives to bring the park there. Here’s a clip from the article:

The City Council is also slated to consider and act on a proposed development agreement among the city of Frisco, the Frisco Economic Development Corp., the Frisco Community Development Corp. and FTNV Corp, which is the Delaware-based shell company that acquired the land for the theme park.
A development agreement is a contract between the developer and the city that governs the development process. Development agreements can include economic incentives as well.
The City Council is scheduled to meet at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday in a closed-door session to get legal advice from the city attorney on the specific use permit as well as the proposed development agreement with FTNV. “Economic incentives and other related matters” will be discussed in the closed session, according to an agenda posted on the city’s web site Saturday evening.

I think this highlights that many places would absolutely be willing and interested in offering incentives even to wealthy corporations.

 

[flynnibus]

No, it's all hypothetical. Disney bought Fox for 71.3 billion. I'm quite certain they are financially capable of developing rural land into a destination of a similar size to WDW without government assistance if they wished to do so, at least in terms of sheer land size, not necessarily everything that exists at WDW today. Though, as @GoofGoof wisely and rightly pointed out, corporations often accept tax incentives to bring jobs to a state, so there would likely be some sort of deal between Disney and any state they would hypothetically wish to bring a new, WDW-like destination to.

You are really comparing apples and pineapples.

1) the value of the deal was 71b… but it wasn’t a 71b outlay of cash

2) when a company decides to spend money as an investment, they do so with an expectation of what kind of return that spend will generate in a specific period of time. Agreeing to spend 100million on a product hou expect to sell is not the same decision on deciding to spend 100million on water management.

You can’t treat these things as equals.

3) you are making claims based on ‘they are rich…’ assumptions instead of anything actually based in comparables or without even a spitball of what the type of scale what you propose would be

It’s not hypothetical - it’s a pure emotional argument based on seeing the size of the disney company.

 

[Brian]

You are really comparing apples and pineapples.

1) the value of the deal was 71b… but it wasn’t a 71b outlay of cash

2) when a company decides to spend money as an investment, they do so with an expectation of what kind of return that spend will generate in a specific period of time. Agreeing to spend 100million on a product hou expect to sell is not the same decision on deciding to spend 100million on water management.

You can’t treat these things as equals.

3) you are making claims based on ‘they are rich…’ assumptions instead of anything actually based in comparables or without even a spitball of what the type of scale what you propose would be

It’s not hypothetical - it’s a pure emotional argument based on seeing the size of the disney company.

I think those are fair points, but is your suggestion that the Disney of 2023 could not afford to build a destination with a similar amount of land as WDW without a special district? I'm sure we can both agree that the Disney of the sixties needed RCID in order to make WDW happen, but I'm not convinced they would need such an arrangement if starting from scratch elsewhere in the U.S..

With that said, I'm not convinced they would do it without concessions from the host state/locality, such as tax breaks, local government control, etc.

 

[GoofGoof]

I think those are fair points, but is your suggestion that the Disney of 2023 could not afford to build a destination with a similar amount of land as WDW without a special district? I'm sure we can both agree that the Disney of the sixties needed RCID in order to make WDW happen, but I'm not convinced they would need such an arrangement if starting from scratch elsewhere in the U.S..

With that said, I'm not convinced they would do it without concessions from the host state/locality, such as tax breaks, local government control, etc.

Disney probably could build WDW today somewhere else without a RCID but I am positive if they actually managed to buy that much land again they would still want to control developing it. Why wouldn’t they? They could certainly build a smaller park like Universal’s boutique park in TX without complete control (although they would still want some control and incentives just like Universal got), but having a massive piece of land that you know will take decades to develop is a different ballgame.

Building a clone of WDW today somewhere else would probably cost $50-100B or maybe more. So even TWDC may not have deep enough pockets or good enough credit to finance something like that. It would certainly have a lot of risk even if they had control of development.

 

[seascape]

The Walt Disney Compsny told Florida that if they didn't get the RCDI in 1967 they would sell all the land and walk away with 100 million in profits.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I think those are fair points, but is your suggestion that the Disney of 2023 could not afford to build a destination with a similar amount of land as WDW without a special district? I'm sure we can both agree that the Disney of the sixties needed RCID in order to make WDW happen, but I'm not convinced they would need such an arrangement if starting from scratch elsewhere in the U.S..

With that said, I'm not convinced they would do it without concessions from the host state/locality, such as tax breaks, local government control, etc.

Nobody would commit to the scale of investment without assurances. What we’re seeing play out right now with a local government that now wants some undefined other type of development is part of why development agreements and special districts exist.

 

[flynnibus]

I think those are fair points, but is your suggestion that the Disney of 2023 could not afford to build a destination with a similar amount of land as WDW without a special district? I'm sure we can both agree that the Disney of the sixties needed RCID in order to make WDW happen, but I'm not convinced they would need such an arrangement if starting from scratch elsewhere in the U.S..

Riddle me this… disney went from swamp to creating the world’s most well known resort visited by 10s of million a year. Wildly successful… and backbone of their business.

Yet, for nearly 30 years they haven’t used the vast wealth they have now to do it again? Why do you think they have instead chosen different paths?

Why haven’t the biggest companies in the world duplicated something on the scale of wdw?

It’s not just money. It’s not just a special district. Wdw is at the scale that even the full governments haven’t undertaken for their own disney.

And all around even mucb smaller developments are being done with government agreements to satisfy similar taxing arrangements and planning.

With that said, I'm not convinced they would do it without concessions from the host state/locality, such as tax breaks, local government control, etc.

No one undertakes such huge long term investments without having a strategy of how they will interact with the governments and the entities around them. Because no one can accept the level of risk that comes with that kind of uncertainty

 

[mikejs78]

the Disney of 2023 could not afford to build a destination with a similar amount of land as WDW without a special district?

They could, but they wouldn't.

With that said, I'm not convinced they would do it without concessions from the host state/locality, such as tax breaks, local government control, etc.

Bingo.

 

[LAKid53]

Disney probably could build WDW today somewhere else without a RCID but I am positive if they actually managed to buy that much land again they would still want to control developing it. Why wouldn’t they? They could certainly build a smaller park like Universal’s boutique park in TX without complete control (although they would still want some control and incentives just like Universal got), but having a massive piece of land that you know will take decades to develop is a different ballgame.

Building a clone of WDW today somewhere else would probably cost $50-100B or maybe more. So even TWDC may not have deep enough pockets or good enough credit to finance something like that. It would certainly have a lot of risk even if they had control of development.

Do not forget that TWDC created several corporations to hide WHO was purchasing those acres in Central Florida. Once word got out it was Disney, prices inflated from as little as $100 an acre to thousands of dollars. It would be difficult in today's social media driven society to do the same.

 

[Brian]

Riddle me this… disney went from swamp to creating the world’s most well known resort visited by 10s of million a year. Wildly successful… and backbone of their business.

Yet, for nearly 30 years they haven’t used the vast wealth they have now to do it again? Why do you think they have instead chosen different paths?

Why haven’t the biggest companies in the world duplicated something on the scale of wdw?

It’s not just money. It’s not just a special district. Wdw is at the scale that even the full governments haven’t undertaken for their own disney.

And all around even mucb smaller developments are being done with government agreements to satisfy similar taxing arrangements and planning.



No one undertakes such huge long term investments without having a strategy of how they will interact with the governments and the entities around them. Because no one can accept the level of risk that comes with that kind of uncertainty

I’m not saying they wish to or have even considered it. WDW, or something if its scale, is something we likely won’t see duplicated by Disney in our lifetimes.

My original point was that Disney can do without RCID today because of its financial resources, most of which did not exist at the time of WDW’s initial construction, thus necessitating RCID.

That said, if they were to, in an alternate universe (because it isn’t happening in this one) attempt to build something the scale of WDW, they’d absolutely seek local government control, but would not need a special district for financial reasons.

 

[GoofGoof]

The charter lays out the purpose of the district. It’s not to build EPCOT. In State vs Reedy Creek Improvement District the FL Supreme Court later confirmed that the purpose of the district was ”essentially and primarily directed toward encouraging and developing tourism”

There is simply no truth to the notion that RCID only existed to build EPCOT.

 

[GoofGoof]

Do not forget that TWDC created several corporations to hide WHO was purchasing those acres in Central Florida. Once word got out it was Disney, prices inflated from as little as $100 an acre to thousands of dollars. It would be difficult in today's social media driven society to do the same.

Yeah it would be very difficult to say the least. If you look at the logistics around something a simple as the Universal park in TX which is less than 100 acres and they still used a shell company to hide who was buying. No way could they buy 300X that land without drawing massive attention.

 

[LAKid53]

3.) I want Disney to he held to the exact same expectations that any other corporation in Florida...and also not be "targeted" unfairly or specifically too. Zero special "perks" that nobody else has.

Please provide what "special perks" you think TWDC has from RCID? The company is paying millions in assessments to the District. For the District to provide services that otherwise would be handled by Orange and Osceola Counties and paid by property owners in the county.

 

[LAKid53]

Yes, addressed many times and with many volumes of discussion. You cherry pick what you want. There are many references and quotable references. The core fact that EPCOT's original (documented in prior to color film, by Mr. Disney himself) concept was for an actual community, of course tourism was welcome enjoy this community.

Walt died. All plans were put on hold.

 

[GoofGoof]

I’m not saying they wish to or have even considered it. WDW, or something if its scale, is something we likely won’t see duplicated by Disney in our lifetimes.

My original point was that Disney can do without RCID today because of its financial resources, most of which did not exist at the time of WDW’s initial construction, thus necessitating RCID.

That said, if they were to, in an alternate universe (because it isn’t happening in this one) attempt to build something the scale of WDW, they’d absolutely seek local government control, but would not need a special district for financial reasons.

The municipal debt isn’t as big a deal as it once was for TWDC. That’s for sure. The benefit of control over development is no different today or actually may be more necessary depending on where they built. FL in 1967 was a whole lot more business friendly than FL under DeSantis. I’d say if they did it today in FL again they’d put even more value on control.

 

[LAKid53]

Yeah it would be very difficult to say the least. If you look at the logistics around something a simple as the Universal park in TX which is less than 100 acres and they still used a shell company to hide who was buying. No way could they buy 300X that land without drawing massive attention.

And paying hundreds of thousands per acre to do so.