Disney recently made a HUGE announcement about a $1 billion project it had planned for the Lake Nona area of Orlando.

In 2021, Disney purchased around 60 acres of land in Lake Nona, calling it a “regional campus” for thousands of Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products team members (some would even relocate from California to Florida). The timeline for the project was extended, but then Disney announced it would not move forward with that project. So what’s going to happen to all that land the company purchased? Well, we have SOME idea.

Disney bought the land from Tavistock Development Co. LLC. According to The Orlando Business Journal, there’s a chance that Tavistock may have some control over the land again now that Disney has backed out of building its employee campus there.

A deed posted to Orange County public records for the sale of the property to Disney in 2021 contains clauses about “rights of first offer and first refusal for the seller; the existence of a memorandum of repurchase option between Tavistock and Disney; a development agreement between the two entities; and detailed use restrictions about what Disney as the buyer could build there.”

So what does that mean? It means that Tavistock may have the option to buy the land back from Disney now that Disney has canceled the project for it.

According to a land expert, Trevor Hall, executive vice president of Colliers, real estate deal clauses like this could allow a seller to buy back property if the buyer doesn’t do what was intended with it. He said, “If they were a typical developer strapped for cash, it would be one thing — they’re not. They’re among the strongest developers in the world, so they have an interest in the ability to control the future of that property.”

However, a Disney spokesperson could not confirm whether such an agreement existed between Disney and Tavistock and said that Disney was “considering next steps for the property,” per The Orlando Business Journal. A Tavistock spokesperson declined to comment.

Some folks in the Central Florida business community believe Disney could eventually change its mind about ending the project, depending on the outcome of the company’s ongoing situation with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. In that case, some believe Disney could hold onto the property until that issue is resolved and then reconsider the employee campus at a later date.

Whatever the case, the cancellation of the project also halted the more than 2,000 jobs that would have come to the area, as well as the 1,000 employees who would have moved to Florida from Southern California.

Stay tuned to DFB for more Disney news.

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The post Disney Canceled a Billion Project in Orlando. So What Happens To All That Land? first appeared on the disney food blog.