Opposition May Derail New Disney Park

The chairman of Walt Disney Co. warned that the company could change its mind about building its planned U.S. history theme park in northern Virginia, saying Disney will back off unless Virginia legislators support taxpayer-financed improvements in roads and other infrastructure to support the park.

Disney chief Michael D. Eisner said the company will wait to purchase land on which it currently holds options in Prince William County until it is clear that opponents of the park will not prevail.

“We have to know that there is no chance that the special interest groups could destroy it, and that the necessary private-public partnership has been completed,” Eisner said in an interview last week.

Disney could not afford to finance highway construction itself, he said, saying the cost would “crater” the company financially.

Eisner also defended the company against criticism of some of its planned exhibits at the park, to be called Disney’s America. He said the attacks were premature and “ludicrous.”

Eisner said a Disney executive misspoke last month when he predicted that an exhibit on slavery would “make you feel what it was like to be a slave.”

It would be “presumptuous,” he said, for anyone to claim to be able to convey what it felt like to be a slave. He said the executive who made the comment “is not a person who generally talks to the media.”