After a shutdown because of the coronavirus, fireworks fill the sky for the first time in 15 months at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Thursday, July 1, 2021, in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Disney opening campus in Florida, moving some SoCal workers

By MIKE SCHNEIDER

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The Walt Disney Co. said Thursday it planned to build a new regional campus in central Florida to house at least 2,000 professional employees who will be relocating from Southern California to work in digital technology, finance and product development.

In a letter to employees, Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, said the move would allow creative and business teams to be better integrated. The company already has a theme park resort, Walt Disney World, that is the size of the city of San Francisco, located outside Orlando, Florida.

The new Disney campus will be located about 20 miles (32 kilometers) to the east of Disney World, in a neighborhood by Orlando International Airport.

“Florida is known for its rich culture of hospitality and active lifestyle as well as a lower cost of living with no state income tax,” D’Amaro said in the employee letter.

While the California-based company is still figuring out which employees will be asked to relocate, they likely will be those in the parks division who aren’t working full-time at Disneyland in California or in the international parks business. Workers asked to relocate will have 18 months to make the move, D’Amaro said.

“As someone who has moved with my family from California to Florida and back again, I understand that relocation is a big change, not only for the employee, but also for their families,” D’Amaro said.

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