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Effects of
Disney Park
Considered
By PATTI H. SNODGRASS
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Although the American history theme park proposed by the Walt Disney Company for Prince William County will have some effect on Rappahannock County, not much has been heard locally about the issues presented by this developmentNot
so in surrounding counties. ,
As a young airline stewardess living in Orlando, Julianne Larese shepherded jammed Eastern Airline flights to Disney World 20 years ago and watched the change around that huge growing theme park in rural central Florida.
Today she commutes from her Warrenton home . to Dulles Airport, past Haymarket, planned to be the new home of Disney’s America, and wonders if life in Fauquier County will become like what she came to know in Florida.
She loved Disney World and loves the life she and her husband have found in Fauquier County now, but worries if places like Warrenton will become like Kissimee, Florida, also just 13 miles from the Disney development.
Her view from experience reflects the optimism, tempered with worry, found generally in Fauquier, Loudon and Prince William counties this week as news settled in of plans to build the huge 3,000 acre Disney’s America theme park just 15 miles from Warrenton.
Since news broke last week of Disney’s plans for an American history theme park on 3,000 acres in Prince William County, politicians, company representatives and Virginia citizens have been trying to predict what good and bad the mammoth project may bring.
Orlando knows. The more than 30,000-acre Walt Disney World Resort opened there in 1971, putting central Florida on the map in many ways, for better and worse, according to those who have witnessed the change.
In the pre-Disney days, the tri-county metropolitan Orlando area—encompassing Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties — was largely dedicated to citrus and cattle.
In the metropolitan Orlando area there were 163 hotel/motel establishments with 6,334 rooms in July 1971, before Disney World opened. Today there are 363 establishments and 80,112 rooms.
Loudoun County resident Rob Jewell, 31, formerly of Orlando, worked as a food service coordinator for Disney at Epcot Center from spring of 1990 to mid-summer 1991. He lived 20 minutes from his job, and could not recall meeting anyone who did not work for Disney. ' t,
“Once they move in, everybody works for Disney,” he said.
Disney’s arrival boosted real estate values as far away as an hour’s drive, according to E. Everette Huskey, president of the 48-year-old Huskey Realty based in Longwood, 15 miles north of Orlando.
Huskey is a self-described builder developer, realtor and native central Floridian.
Disney America in Virginia is expected to employ 3,000.
As one of Disney’s 35,000 employees in Orlando, Jewell said the company provides job security that is welcome to many workers, while some may have a hard time adjusting to the “very regimented” atmosphere.
“They (pay) a penny above strike level,” said Jewell.
Although he was not always happy working for Disney, Jewell said company managers and employees “are very community-minded people.”
A mix of residential development followed the arrival of Disney World, to house executives and hourly wage earners, Huskey said.
See Disney, Page A-6
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