Mold, Leaks, and Structural Problems Plague Homes in Disney-Built Town of Celebration, Florida: Report
It doesn’t look like there’s much to celebrate, in Celebration, Florida.
The Walt Disney Co.–built town, which opened in 1996 and sits in an 11-square-mile enclave near the Magic Kingdom, was designed to be a modern-day suburban Utopia. But a new report in The Wall Street Journal paints a picture far less colorful.
Condominium owners there tell the paper that 20 years after its opening, their properties in Celebration are plagued with problems, including leaky roofs, moldy walls, and balconies that have separated from the sides of their buildings.
Gone are the perfect pastel-colored, picket-fenced homes. Now, columns holding up some of the buildings are rotting, blue tarps cover leaky structures, and temporary beams support broken balconies.
Residents say their homes are so dilapidated, they haven’t been able to sell them. “We bought cabins on the Titanic,” 73-year-old resident Cookie Kelly to the Journal.
In April, the condo owners’ association reportedly opened a civil suit against private-equity firm Lexin Capital, which bought the town center from Disney in 2004, and is being asked to pay between $15 million and $20 million in repairs.
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The town has a population of about 10,000 people spread across 105 condo units and about 4,000 single-family homes, the Journal reports.
Metin Negrin, Lexin Capital president, told the paper that many of the problems the town is experiencing stem from Disney’s development. While the company hired world-famous architects to design many of the buildings, those architects had made basic mistakes — including not taking Florida’s humid climate into consideration.
In some buildings walls are lined with nylon which traps water and causes rotting. Others have balconies that slope toward the building, instead of away from them, Negrin explains.
“The town does have wear and tear — I’m not going to dispute that,” he told the Journal. “ no amount of maintenance could have avoided these kinds of issues because it wasn’t built properly. We feel we are victims here too.”
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Negrin estimates repairs would be closer to $5 million — including the $1 already spent. He also said the condo association has avoided paying its dues for upkeep of the buildings throughout the years — instead the association has expressed they feel Lexin Capital should cover the cost.
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A Disney spokesperson told the Journal that none of the buildings in Celebration had structural problems during the tenure of their ownership.
While Disney is no longer responsible for maintenance since the sale, some property owners told the Journal that they’d like to see Disney step in to help.
“There’s nothing more insulting with the 20th anniversary . . . than to parade people through, whitewash the front of the buildings, put lipstick on a pig,” said condo board president Laurel Rousseau. “Meanwhile we have condos we can’t sell.”
