Rumors about a fifth Disney World theme park being built have been around for years. Now it seems that a fifth Disney World Park could be possible as Walt Disney World and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are entering a more peaceful era which might be coming as a new development deal would allow for expansion and development for the park.
Business Insider is reporting that The Walt Disney Company’s $17 billion development plan is up for a public hearing with DeSantis’ appointed Central Florida Tourism Oversight District (CFTOD), which had replaced the Reedy Creek Improvement District during the most tumultuous times of the Disney-DeSantis feud in February 2023.
The public hearing will be held this week, and the CFTOD board will vote on June 15 on whether to allow the new development plan to proceed. If it’s allowed, it’ll be the second peaceful agreement between the two parties following the settlement reached in late March 2024, which ended two years of legal feuding following DeSantis’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill was passed into law with vocal criticism from The Walt Disney Company.
The new development agreement would allow for the expansion of Walt Disney World over the next two decades. As now written, the agreement would allow Disney to spend $17 billion to further develop Walt Disney World over the next 10 to 20 years, according to a statement from the tourism board. However, Disney must find local contractors for 50 percent of its construction work.
“With Walt Disney World’s substantial investments, we anticipate economic growth, job creation, and support for local businesses, alongside environmental stewardship and workforce housing initiatives, benefiting Central Florida’s community,” the district administrator, Stephanie Kopelousos, said in a statement to Business Insider.
Disney CEO Bob Iger dodged a question about a new theme park at its Florida Resort during an earnings call in February. “We’re already hard at work at basically determining where we’re going to place our new investments and what they will be,” Iger said. “You can pretty much conclude that they’ll be all over, meaning every single one of our locations will be the beneficiary of increased investment.”
Representatives for The Walt Disney Company and Walt Disney World didn’t respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Currently, Disney Experiences has four theme parks in the Orlando area: Magic Kingdom Park, EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom. There has been no official announcements about the addition for a new theme park at Walt Disney World Resort at this point.
What do you think of a possible fifth Disney World theme park? Let us know in the comments.
