Found!

[PGHFiend 140]

So while on google earth looking at the Clermont area and Lake Magic Resort for spring break, I stubled upon this by accident.  I had never heard about this before, and found a pretty good write-up here.

Thought some may be interested. 

 

 

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

Pretty cool. I remember reading about this before. Thanks for sharing.  

[Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie 119]

Learned something new today. Thanks for posting this article, very interesting.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

That article is a great find!

I do remember discussing this tree farm before, and was told that it was on private property and that Disney had nothing to do with it.

Well, that article shows Disney had a lot to do with it.

One thing we don't know is what the end game is with the trees.  The Eyes and Ears article suggests that Disney bought up a bunch of old citrus groves and was reforesting the land.  The blog clearly states that the tree farm is on private property.  But who owns it?  If Disney never owned it, why did they have their CM's volunteer to plant the trees?

I know folks who own timber land in Florida.  While the trees grow, they make some money by harvesting and selling the pine needles.  But, the main goal is to harvest the trees and sell them to a paper mill, and then start over again.

TCD

[DaveInTN 3,247]

11 minutes ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

I know folks who own timber land in Florida.  While the trees grow, they make some money by harvesting and selling the pine needles.  But, the main goal is to harvest the trees and sell them to a paper mill, and then start over again.

TCD

Well if that is the end game, then the age old question that has forever haunted those who eat Mickey Waffles will come up.  Ears first, or go right for the head?

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

4 minutes ago, DaveInTN said:

Well if that is the end game, then the age old question that has forever haunted those who eat Mickey Waffles will come up.  Ears first, or go right for the head?

LOL.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

It has been a long time since I've looked in to the tree farm.

In recent years, all of the County Property Appraisers offices in Florida have done a lot of upgrading on their websites, and I thought it might be interesting to see if I could find the Mickey Tree Farm and see who owned it.

It took me only a few minutes.

Here's a screen cap from the Lake County Property Appraiser's website (Lake County borders Orange County, which is where most of WDW is situated) :

That's definitely our parcel- the data on the Property Appraiser's website shows it's owned by a Limited Liability Company based in Jacksonville.

Another page on the Property Appraiser's Website shows various data on this parcel, including the book and page number where the deeds transferring ownership are recorded.:

Official Records images are now all online too.

Here's a copy of the deed from when the Reedy Creek Improvement District first acquired the property from a private owner in 1989:

It's a complicated story, but for all intents and purposes Reedy Creek is Disney.

And here's a copy of the deed from when Reedy Creek sold the property in 2002:

The remaining transfers were all between private owners- the property was no longer connected to Disney after 2002.

So Disney did own it, but now it doesn't.

I guess that's that.

TCD

[keith_h 420]

Looking up the current owner my guess is they are shell company set up to hide the real owners. Their history shows mailing addresses for attorneys in Maryland and Florida along with registered agents all being attorneys in Florida. So being one that likes the occasional conspiracy theory it still could be owned by Disney. 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

4 minutes ago, keith_h said:

Looking up the current owner my guess is they are shell company set up to hide the real owners. Their history shows mailing addresses for attorneys in Maryland and Florida along with registered agents all being attorneys in Florida. So being one that likes the occasional conspiracy theory it still could be owned by Disney. 

It could be- they originally bought all the WDW land through shell companies.

But, I don't see why Disney would want this property.  It looks like they made a nice profit on it, and the current owners probably are investors.  I meant to point out that they have an agricultural exemption on the property, so their property taxes on this multi-million dollar asset are only about $1600 a year.  It's probably a long term investment in someone's portfolio.

TCD

[Grumpy and Grandma 740]

Maybe it was a "shill" purchase to help keep Disney's anonymity.  Or was he required to buy it as part of a package of groves?

It is really far from everything else