Disney’s cancellation of Lake Nona campus has big implications for Osceola County, Darren Soto says

Disney’s cancelation of its nearly $1 billion Lake Nona campus has a big impact on Osceola County and constitutes a “terrible loss” for the local economy, according to U.S. Rep. Darren Soto.

In May, Disney announced the cancellation of the corporate office project in Orlando’s Lake Nona neighborhood — an area bordering Osceola County — amid the ongoing feud with Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The project would have brought over 2,000 high-paying jobs to the area. Soto, who represents the area, spoke with the Orlando Sentinel Wednesday after The Osceola Chamber’s legislative update.

“Whether it’s Republican or Democrats, divisive politics is bad for business and it’s bad for jobs,” Soto said. “DeSantis singling out the company is a blow to the local economy and there’s no doubt about that.”

Since Disney’s announcement, some have agreed with Soto, saying DeSantis’ feud with Disney spurred the decision and killed jobs, while others say that, due to large layoffs and an attempt to cut $5.5 billion in costs, Disney was going to cancel the project anyway.

Soto said, apart from losing out on thousands of high-wage jobs, small businesses in Osceola County will lose out on serving those workers and new residents.

“This has been a particularly hard-felt attack on our local economy,” Soto said.

Soto said tourism and agriculture are major employers in Osceola County and high-paying jobs like Disney’s Lake Nona campus would have been a step in the right direction to diversify the county’s economy.

“When the economy goes south we really take a hit in our unemployment, which we saw during the great recession and we saw recently during the pandemic,” Soto said.

In January 2021, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Osceola had the highest rate of jobless workers in the state with an unemployment rate of 8.7%.

Higher-wage jobs like Osceola’s semiconductor hub NeoCity and proposed clean energy manufacturing park Green Garden Village will help diversify the county’s economy and strengthen it in the face of another looming recession, Soto said.

“This helps a lot of our businesses in the area because when you have more residents with more disposable income, that supports the local salon or local bodega or local tourism attraction and the like, so all this is part of lifting up the whole community,” Soto said.

Lifting up the community by bringing more higher-paying jobs is something Soto touted during his virtual speech at the Osceola Chamber’s annual legislative update and echoed by other panelists.

The Osceola Chamber hosted the annual legislative update Wednesday with a panel of state representatives and a virtual appearance by Soto. District 46 State Rep. Kristen Arrington, newly elected District 47 State Rep. Paula Stark and District 45 State Rep. Carolina Amesty were asked questions by moderator Leticia Adams, senior manager of government relations at Disney.

The discussion included attracting companies that pay higher wages and the affordable housing crisis in the fast-growing county.

During the panel, Stark said she was most excited for the $2.95 million in funding for BRIDG’s microchip packaging design center in NeoCity in the state budget. She said the funding is an important economic driver for the county and can have a positive impact to create more higher-paying jobs within Osceola.

“I think that is going to be a huge initiative for our community,” Stark said. “It’s going to bring in jobs, so those are all the things that we need to be able to focus on because that’s the kind of thing that will help us not have to have so much affordable housing.”

Arrington and Amesty said the affordable housing crisis is due to the county’s low-paying, tourism-based economy.

Arrington said she hopes to see more hotel and motel conversions to studio apartments, which can help solve some of the affordable housing shortage for the theme park workforce who struggle to make ends meet.

“Osceola is still lacking in investing in affordable housing but we know that some of that is growth from the state and the amount of folks moving here,” Arrington said. “If anyone goes online to find something that they can rent or purchase it’s really really hard, [because] there’s not a lot available.”