Yes, they did consider one here in Virginia. They were going to call it "Disney America" It was going to be in the Gainesville/Haymarket area. The locals voted them out because the traffic here is already terrible as it is. It would have been a small park, maybe 1,000 acres or so.
I vote for a climate that is comfortable most of the year round...hmmm
Susan
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Disney's Defeat Didn't Stop Growth -- Or End Debate -- in Prince William
By Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 24, 2003; Page A01
In the end, there was no Industrial Revolution roller coaster, no Lewis and Clark raft ride, no Civil War fort or nightly fireworks. In the end, Mickey Mouse and his friends never came to Northern Virginia. Their magic was no match for the intense opposition to an American history theme park proposed by Disney 10 years ago for the rolling hills of western Prince William County.
Much has changed since Disney came knocking in November 1993. The theme park's fierce opponents, who eventually forced the Walt Disney Co. to abandon its plans, went on to build an anti-sprawl movement that has influenced politics and growth throughout the region. At the same time, Disney's retreat didn't take development with it. In fact, Prince William has boomed, adding nearly 100,000 people in the past decade.
Homes are being built at Dominion Valley Country Club in Prince William, where Walt Disney Co.'s plan to build a historical theme park was defeated. (Gerald Martineau -- The Washington Post)
Thousands of upscale homes have sprung up in the area where Disney wanted to build a $650 million theme park. And rather than theme-park gridlock, western Prince William suffers from commuter gridlock.
Debate still simmers among some residents: Would the county have been better off with Disney and the accompanying T-shirt shops and fast-food restaurants, or has it benefited more from the high-end houses that have come instead?
If the park had been built, it would have given the area an economic boost, many say. At the same time, others argue, it would have perpetuated Prince William's reputation as a country-cousin county of mainly low-end retail businesses, stretching from the discount mecca of Potomac Mills mall in the east to Disney in the west.
"We're finally starting to break ourselves out of being completely dependent on a service economy and moving into the high-tech and biotech worlds," said county board chairman Sean Connaughton (R), referring to Prince William's ability to lure outposts of corporate giants America Online and Eli Lilly. "I don't think we ever would have done that if Disney became the driving force in the economy."
In the early 1990s, the county was considered something of a backwater, lagging behind the progress that was reshaping much of Northern Virginia. It had the highest tax rate in the state, its business base was mainly confined to discount stores and, despite all its history, it was best known as the place where Lorena Bobbitt carried out the infamous attack on her husband.
Ten years later, its profile is tonier. Not far from where Disney would have gone, George Mason University has built a campus, AOL has established two data centers and pharmaceutical leader Lilly is building a $425 million facility that will employ about 700 people.
Time magazine named one of the county schools High School of the Year in 2001. Housing prices have shot so high that county leaders who once complained of too many cheap townhouses are considering building subsidized housing for county workers who otherwise can't afford to live in Prince William. County revenue is so healthy that the tax rate has dropped 20 cents in three years.
More growth is on the way. Last year, for example, Prince William supervisors approved a plan that could put development on the scale of Tysons Corner a short distance from the former Disney site.
The debate over the county's direction since the demise of Disney seems to come up repeatedly at Red Rooster Antiques and Collectibles. It's one of the few surviving businesses in Haymarket, the blip of a town that once stood to gain immeasurably from Disney.
Owner Pam Stutz said she was opposed to Disney because she didn't understand why people would want to visit a re-created version of American history. She also said that resulting traffic would have been a nightmare.
"We got it anyway," Corinna Pearson said from behind the cash register. Their eyes met across the knickknacks and country kitsch with a look that said they'd had this discussion before, many times.
"The biggest complaint for everybody was too much traffic. Well, hello!" Pearson said, pointing toward the unending line of cars passing through town. "I think it would have brought more money into the area. It would be better than millions of houses."
Former Haymarket mayor John R. "Jack" Kapp agreed. From the moment that a group of Disney executives crowded into his living room on a cold Wednesday in November 1993, he and other officials were jubilant at the idea of a major tourist attraction, employment center and tax generator at a time when the area was struggling to emerge from a crippling recession.
"Had Disney come, we would have had money and . . . we wouldn't have had to pay for schools and infrastructure and roads," said Kapp, who retired to Williamsburg several weeks ago.
Shortly after Disney made its announcement, Virginia lawmakers approved $163 million in incentives for Disney, including about $130 million to improve Interstate 66, Routes 29 and 15 and other nearby roads. Those fixes are on indefinite hold.
Others credit the thousands of homes built on the original Disney site for attracting wealthier, more educated residents who have elevated the county from its former poor-cousin status.
Stephen S. Fuller, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who was a fan of the proposed Disney park at the time, sees a healthy post-Disney Prince William.
The next 10 years will be the age of Prince William, he said. "Once Eli Lilly gets up and running, along with some of the other smaller businesses that are either in the works or likely to follow, I think it'll do better than Loudoun or Fairfax," he said. "I think they're a real player. In the next 10 years, they're going to come of age."
In fact, Fuller said, the forces that sent Disney packing did Prince William a big favor. "Given what the county has achieved since, if we went out another 10 years and asked the question, we might agree it wasn't such a bad thing that they didn't get it."
The additional legacy of Disney -- the advent of a well-organized, slow-growth movement -- has had its own impact on the region. Opponents have been able to turn their victory into a lasting strategy for battling new development and some roads in formerly rural areas.
"Disney began the process of helping a locally based conservation movement get better organized," said Christopher G. Miller, president of the Piedmont Environmental Council, which led the battle against the project. "It demonstrated that we could be a lead participant in a broader effort and make a difference. It was a seminal moment."
From that moment, Miller and his allies created some of the region's most influential lobbying groups on growth and development -- the Coalition for Smarter Growth, Virginia's chapter of the League of Conservation Voters and the Prince William Conservation Alliance, among others. Members of those groups are regulars in county offices and at public hearings and regional forums, where they champion transit-based development and argue against sprawl. Last year, those organizations scored a major victory when they helped defeat a proposal to raise sales taxes to pay for new roads.
In the aftermath of the Disney fight, the opposition forces moved north to Loudoun County, where they helped elect a slate of slow-growth board members in 1999, who this year radically reduced development in the western part of the county. On Nov. 4, county voters ousted the slow-growth majority and elected a new slate of board members who have been critical of the development restrictions.
In Virginia's Piedmont and Shenandoah Valley, where a core group of anti-Disney activists live, environmental leaders say that Disney caused a surge in conservation easements that have protected 100,000 acres over the past decade, 20,000 acres more than were set aside in the previous 20-plus years.
In post-Disney Prince William, slow-growth activists who organized against the park have achieved real gains. Although development has continued to march across the county, activists have lobbied successfully to control it. In 1998, county officials agreed to cordon off 80,000 acres bordering the Disney site for low-density development, an initiative that officials say never could have happened with the Magic Kingdom next door.
They succeeded again this month, when a majority of slow-growth candidates were elected to the Prince William board for the first time.
Winning candidates gave credit for their victory to political pressure that has built since the Disney battle and an earlier fight against a shopping center that was planned for next to Manassas National Battlefield Park.
"The Williams [shopping] Center controversy and Disney really galvanized the citizens to create a new vision for the community," said Connaughton, who was first elected four years ago and led the group of slow-growth candidates to victory this month.
"I can honestly say I doubt I'd be sitting on this board if it wasn't for those two events changing the citizens' views and perspectives on the future of the county."
I'm wondering if after that experience Disney won't expand outside of California and Florida. They might want to focus on their existing parks. One can always hope that they will build another park though!
