New Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board outlines its plans as it assumes control over Reedy Creek at Walt Disney World

Apr 19, 2023 in "Reedy Creek Improvement District"

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Posted: Wednesday April 19, 2023 10:40am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

At today's Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board meeting, the new management board outlined several priorities that it hopes to evaluate and implement as it takes over from Reedy Creek Improvement District.

Reedy Creek Improvement District overview

The board said that they will aim to provide the governor with a report before the next Florida legislative session so they can make more long-term changes to the legislation of the district.

Here is a run-down of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District's current plans as outlined at today's meeting:

Creating new zoning to develop affordable and workforce housing
Creating voting rights for future residents in that housing
Developing better traffic solutions for the surrounding counties
Reducing the carbon footprint for the district
Aligning the district's interests to join Osceola and Orange counties to fight Disney's lawsuits relating to taxes
Join the counties and school boards in efforts to create funding for public schools in Central Florida
Evaluate regulating Disney like every other business in Central Florida
Charging utility rates that are not controlled by Disney
Evaluate providing more transparent to the districted governors
Implementing new accounting standards
Increasing the district revenues
Evaluate how to monetize assets of the districts to pay off debts

The board also revealed that Disney created an agreement with Reedy Creek Improvement District prior to the arrival of the new board to set their own utility rates. Board member Martin Garcia said, "Disney is going to tell the governing body what utility rates they are going to pay and what everyone else in the district is going to pay."

We expect to hear more on many of these points during the presentations later this morning at the board meeting.

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drnilescrane1 hour ago

An interesting little nugget in the Disneyland Forward documentation was that Disney has used the company that owns the Lake Nona site (Dynamic Campus, LLC) to buy out some of the owners of land they held under long term leases as a 1031 exchange (reinvesting proceeds of other land sales). They're probably going to just hang onto it until they find place to reinvest those funds or Tavistock exercises their option to force Disney to sell it back. (The Disneyland situation is interesting: the COVID closure pushed a lot of the small Harbor Blvd hotels into bankruptcy, and the rich families who own a lot of the old farmland that Disney leased back in 2001 decided to reallocate their capital)

MagicHappens19711 day ago

Most likely not. Disney isn't building it because it was a Chapek plan that Iger didn't like, they used the guise of the political issues they were having to justify not building it.

rogerrabbitfan91 day ago

I would imagine that any long term office use plans from that long ago are based on very different assumptions than would be made today.

Goofyernmost1 day ago

I looked at it, when they cancelled that project, it was more of a convenient way of getting out of it. There was a lot of backlash from the Imagineering department about uprooting and heading for the less than liberal thinking area called Florida. They were about to lose a lot of very creative people. They might still attempt to be the developer of that property if they still own it, but they won't be investing more money into it in my opinion.

eddie1041 day ago

I don’t believe they have.

Comped1 day ago

To my knowledge, Disney still hasn't sold off the land?

eddie1041 day ago

I wonder once the dust settles on this will this revive their plans for an East Coast division HQ in Florida?

BrianLo2 days ago

It's nice to get the funding commitment tied up into this. Obviously they've given themselves an out in case of an 'event', much like they have for Disneyland Forward. But an out doesn't mean zero investment. It also sort of again concedes their figures aren't just purely political or Wall Street talking points. Not that I've doubted they are, but the company clearly intends (at this juncture) to still spend this 17 billion over ten years.

BrianLo2 days ago

From what Len posted it would seem to be maybe a two-ish year project finishing mid or late 2027. World Drive being done in 2026.

JoeCamel2 days ago

Or when they spend other people's money

Dr.GrantSeeker2 days ago

Really excited about the widening of Western Way. Is there a timeline on that? It needs to happen sooner than later.

mkt2 days ago

It’s amazing what will get done when the board is forced to act in good faith

Tom P.2 days ago

It's a discussion forum. That's the whole point. Why would you want to be in a discussion on a discussion forum and just say "eh, let's stop talking about this" and expect everyone to just drop it?