Disney World Faces Competition as Massive Theme Park Threatens Immediate Opening Nearby

The Walt Disney World Resort has faced months of threats from Governor Ron DeSantis, the COVID-19 pandemic, increasingly close outbreaks of measles, and a never-ending series of lawsuits, but now it may have to deal with an actual competitor. Plans to construct a massive new theme park just outside of the Magic Kingdom are underway, and Disney World has a brand-new problem.

Ovation: The Disney World Resort Killer

Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort is, by a large stretch, the most popular theme park in the world, rivaled only by the original Disneyland Resort. There are few parks that even come close to matching its iconic attractions, like EPCOT and Blizzard Beach, but that doesn’t mean a Florida-based developer isn’t going to try.

An organization known as the Meyers Group has filed a Community Development Application in Osceola County (per Orlando Sentinel) to build “Ovation, ” a huge, 77-acre entertainment complex that will reportedly include “four hotels with a combined 1,934 keys and a retail/dining/entertainment center comprising 16 restaurants with seating for 2,600 diners and an entertainment venue with a capacity of 1,625 guests.”

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Competition Just Minutes From Magic Kingdom

If the company’s application is approved, the planned Ovation project will break ground at the I-4 interchange with U.S. 192 in Kissimmee at an abandoned hotel site. As you can see from the map below, this would place the new entertainment complex just minutes from Disney World.

Meyers Group vice president of development Bill Shewalter says, “It’s going to be very cool. It’s a location and a project that seems to attract all the big names that you want versus kind of what’s currently available in Orlando — and there’s a lot of good stuff, but nothing quite like this.”

Is Disney World Old News?

It is not difficult to read Mr. Shewalter’s statement as something of a dig against Disney World, the state’s largest single-site employer and a massive entertainment center in its own right. The Disney Park has been an iconic part of Florida and a huge tourist draw for decades, but it appears that Ovation is ready to consider it old news.

Shewalter continued, saying that Ovation would have a tone that was “more grown up” and feature the “hottest, latest new restaurants. There’s a lot of brands coming in from some of the bigger cities on the eastern seaboard,” he said. “And we were able to attract a number of great brands from New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Nashville.”

It is particularly impossible not see read the “more grown up” comment as referencing the Disney World Resort’s status as a premiere destination for families with children, though so-called Disney Adults have also been making their presence known.

There Are Billions of Dollars at Stake for Disney

Rj Whidden & Associates are currently developing the full plans for the Disney World competitor, which will include 700,000 square feet of restaurants, retail, and entertainment (presumably geared to a more adult audience than more Mouse-themed parks). It will also include a 175-foot-tall Ferris wheel; even if Meyer Group wants to pitch Ovation as an adult entertainment center, that makes it a theme park.

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Plans for Ovation and its construction could take years, but this is the first time in decades that Walt Disney World has faced an actual existential threat in terms of theme park competition. Governor Ron DeSantis bizarrely threatened that the land around Magic Kingdom (formerly known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District and now dubbed the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District) could become either a new state prison or a rival theme park, but that appears to have been more of an awkward joke than an actual plan.

In contrast, Meyers Group has a whole plan to draw billions of dollars of potential revenue from Disney World. That’s money that the company desperately needs, especially now that CEO Bob Iger has pledged a massive expansion of Disney Parks in the next several years. Ovation may take time to build, but it could not come at a worse time for Disney.

Do you think this new theme park could shutter Disney World? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments below!

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