Here's some interesting reading about the old welcome center (closed in 2005):
Disney Information Center leaving Ocala
08/07/2005
After 18 years, Mickey and Minnie are scampering out of Ocala.
The Disney Information Center, located just off Interstate 75 and State Road 200, will close next week, Disney officials confirmed Friday.
The Internet age reduced the number of Disney visitors using the center, said company spokeswoman Andrea Finger.
"When we opened the center 18 years ago, it was part of our marketing strategy," she said. "With all of the advances in technology, guests increasingly have access. Most guests have all the information they need about Walt Disney World before they begin travel."
The center will close at the end of the business day Aug. 13, Finger said. The center's 16 employees - nine full-time and seven part-time - will be offered jobs at the Orlando theme parks, she added.
"We hope that they will stay with us," she said. "There were a good number of the cast members who were part of the opening team in 1987."
Finger declined to discuss how many visitors use the center each year, saying Disney doesn't release attendance numbers for any of its properties.
Ocala resident Laurie Garcia went to the center Friday afternoon to pick up theme park tickets and maps. She and her family were headed to Orlando today.
"That's really sad. I'm really sad about that," she said when told of the center's closing.
Garcia moved from the Chicago area to Ocala last September. She said she'd visited the center "three or four" times since then.
"I come here because it's more convenient" to get tickets, she said. "I'll have to drive to Disney or do it online, and I don't like doing things online."
The center's closing won't affect the local economy, said Jo Salyers, chair of the county's Tourism Development Council.
"I don't think it really had any impact," she said. "Their mission was really to pull people away."
According to Finger, Disney owns the property. But that could not be immediately confirmed through Marion County property records.
After the center closes, the property will be sold, Finger said.
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And more:
April 26, 2006
OCALA - The former Disney Welcome Center, a fixture to countless tourists on their way to Disney World until it closed last year, has been sold.
An investment partnership known as JR Investments of Ocala LLC, bought the property from Disney for $2 million, according to Ray Amin, one of the two principals in the partnership. A Disney spokesman confirmed that the property had been sold, but could offer no additional information.
There is no immediate plan to do anything. It is just for the investment purpose right now," Amin said Tuesday. "We thought it was a good opportunity."
Amin's partner in the venture, developer Jeff Fabian, couldn't be reached for comment.
The center, located at 3601 S.W. 38th Ave., closed last August 13, after 18 years in Ocala. Disney officials said at the time that fewer theme park visitors were using the center because they were able to get information, make reservations and buy tickets on the Internet before coming to Florida.
The property, just off of Interstate 75 and State Road 200, had been listed for sale at $2.3 million since the welcome center closed.
Public records indicate JR Investments has a two-year, $1.6 million mortgage on the welcome center, financed through Ocala National Bank.
JR Investments will renovate the building, but beyond that, it's not clear what the company will do next, Amin said.
"We're going to decide in the next few months what we're going to do with the property," he said. While the partnership has "a couple of different scenarios" in mind, Amin said he didn't want to publicly disclose what those options were.
The property is flanked by two new hotels under construction, a Holiday Inn and a Residence Inn.
