The big news from Orlando today was that
Disney purchased a 965 acre plot of land just south-east of Celebration for a cool $23 million. The area has been vacant and up for sale for a long time, known locally as the BK Ranch site. The big question is, what is Disney going to do with it? The answer isn’t quite as exciting as you think, since this is located on the other side of I-4 from the rest of Walt Disney World.
Rumor has it that Disney may be planning to the addition of this huge property to their own in order to simply leave it alone as a natural space as part of the ongoing land-swap game they have to play in Florida that requires a certain amount of land to be left untouched or used for “water management needs” for every acre that is developed. On the bright side, this also means that Disney is looking forward with long-term planning that will involve significant future growth within the existing Walt Disney World property. This isn’t the first time Disney has done this in Florida however, as it was just
2014 when they purchased a 3,000 acre site next to Walt Disney World known as Mira Lago that had been previously ear-marked for a housing project that failed to materialize. Instead Disney planned to restore the wetlands and natural landscape in exchange for being able to develop more of their previously existing property.
So who knows… with more land purchased, perhaps they are even thinking far ahead into the future at the concept of adding the long anticipated 5th park. Like the man said, “If you can dream it, you can do it.”
