This is a magical story of a magical investment. Although your real estate investment will probably not be as big, we can still come up with a code name for it! lol There are endless stories big and small of how people have made large profits by investing in Real Estate. Real Estate doesn't have to be a single financial gain, it can continue to expand your wallet! It is my mission to help you make money this year and next year and so on.
In the early 1960's, Walt and a team of Imagineers, including his brother Roy and General Joe Potter (can you find his name somewhere in Walt Disney World?)embarked on a super-secret endeavor, known simply as "Project X" (later known as "Project Florida") to scour the nation in search for a new location for a second theme park. First and foremost, they were looking for a lots of land... cheap! Second they wanted it to be near a major city, with good weather and great highways and infrastructure. Reportedly, when Walt's plane crossed over the intersection of I-4 and Route 192 in Florida, he knew he found his spot.
But how does Walt Disney go and buy up thousands of acres of land without the landowners holding out for exorbitant prices? He doesn't. Sort of. Walt Disney set up dozens of "dummy" corporations, with names like "M.T. Lott" (get it? Empty Lot?), the "Latin-American Development and Managers Corporation" and the "Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation" to purchase seemingly worthless parcels of land ranging from swampland to cattle pastures. By May of 1965, there had been major land purchases recorded in Osceola and Orange Counties (just southwest of Orlando), although no one realized (or suspected at first) that Disney had anything to do with it. One of the earliest purchases included 8,500 acres owned by Florida state senator Irlo Bronson.
In late June of that same year, the Orlando Sentinel reported in an article that over 27,000 acres had recently changed hands. Speculation began that large corporations such as Ford, McDonnell-Douglas, Hughes Aircraft, and Boeing, (as Kennedy Space Center was located nearby), as, yes, even Walt Disney. In October, though, Orlando Sentinel reporter Emily Bavar, having her suspicions confirmed after various non-responsive answers from Disney employees, released the story that it was Walt Disney who had been secretly behind the purchases of all of this land. Of course, once it was revealed that Disney was behind the purchases, the prices of land jumped more than 1000%! That's partially why Walt bought his first acre of land in Florida for Walt Disney World for $80.00 and his last for $80,000.00!
Disney quickly scheduled a press conference and confirmed the story. With the governor of the state of Florida and his brother Roy by his side, Walt described the $000 million dollar project that would become Walt Disney World. In exchange for bringing such a boost to the area's economy, the creation of thousands of jobs, and improvements to the environment and infrastructure of central Florida, Disney was given permission to establish their own, autonomous government, known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District. This quasi-government gave Disney the ability to create their own building codes, do his own zoning and planning of roads and bridges, and create his own residential community, among other perks.
When Walt Disney purchased the 47 square miles that was to become the Walt Disney World Resort as we know it today, it was nothing more than a desolate swampland, scrub forests, and groves. In order to transform this area into the number one vacation destination in the world, massive amounts of Earth had to be moved. Additionally, since much of central Florida is essentially "floating" on a body of water, a daunting challenge presented itself. Disney had to transform this land, while balancing the needs of the environment and ecology of the area. If any part of the water supply was damaged or deleted, it would have caused a massive ecological imbalance to the region.
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