Just how big is Disney World anyway? I’ve never been there, but I’ve looked at satellite views of it from Google Earth, and though it’s certainly the largest amusement park I’ve seen, I didn’t think it was big enough to host individual luxury homes.
That’s right: Disney World’s building luxury homes on its property. According to Central Florida News 13, Disney World’s building a gated community called Golden Oaks which will host up to 400 homes. Prices for the houses range between $1.5 million and $8 million, with a deposit alone costing $25,000. I don’t know much about luxury housing, but given the word “luxury,” those prices don’t seem abnormal to me, at least for homes at this tier.
Still, Disney’s outdoing itself with Golden Oaks. I can’t even figure out where they’re going to put it. I doubt anyone willing to spend that kind of money on a luxury home wants to live close enough to a theme park to hear all of the noise and bustle that must occur at the Most Magical Place on Earth every day.
So that must mean that the homes will be built a good distance away from the park, further meaning that Disney owns a huge amount of property in the area. I’m beginning to wonder if there’s very much in Orlando, or even all of Orange County, Florida, that doesn’t belong to Disney.
Mostly what I’m wondering, however, is how far some fans’ devotion to Disney goes. I’m certainly a Disney addict, but as I’ve said before, my brand loyalty only extends as far as the movies are concerned. I’m not more interested in buying any other sort of product just because it bears the Disney name, and so I’m very curious as to whether there are 400 Disney fans out there with millions to drop on a house who are.
I know Golden Oaks isn’t Disney’s first residential endeavor. There’s Celebration, Florida, a legitimate Disney-created town with a quaint atmosphere and a rising population. But other than housing the offices for several House of Mouse companies, Celebration doesn’t really contain a Disney presence anymore.
I assume that’s the way it will be for Golden Oaks; Disney will create a normal housing community on land I’m sure they already invested in ages ago, and let it be to thrive on its own. If residents choose to boast about how they’re living in Disney houses, well, that’s just icing on the cake.
Aside from how I am still boggling over how much property Disney owns in Florida (which leads me to wonder how much property Disney owns around the world), I’m unsettled because this is not the sort of thing I want Disney focusing on.
News broke two weeks ago that “The Snow Queen,” a long-in-development hand-animated film planned by Disney, has been put on the back burner indefinitely. Word is that Disney execs axed the project because, while “The Princess and the Frog” netted perfectly respectable ticket sales, it wasn’t the smash the execs wanted. So they’re backing down from a potentially risky project.
Instead they chose to pour millions, if not billions, into a residential community. I’m immediately reminded of Roy E. Disney’s words in the 1980s, when he returned to his uncle’s business, that Walt Disney Corp. felt more like a real estate company that happened to make movies, than a film studio that changed the landscape of cinema.
Now, with exciting, if risky, projects terminated and Disney investing further into real estate, it seems those words have come true. And that’s a grim thought.
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