THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 25, 1994 TAG: 9410250275
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: HAYMARKET, VA. LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
The quiet fields and country lanes of Haymarket are basically unchanged since last month when the Walt Disney Co. announced it was dropping its plans for a theme park, but the local grapevine is ripe with tales of real estate fortunes made and lost.
Throughout the area, real estate experts estimate dozens of contracts were written with sales pegged to a certain date or conditional on approval of Disney construction.
Disney abandoned its Haymarket site Sept. 28 after nearly a year of opposition and a barrage of lawsuits from historians and environmentalists.
The company says it still wants to build a history-based theme park in Virginia, but has not said where.
For some people, such as Ike and Julie Broaddus, learning that Disney was leaving was cause for a party.
Just 30 days before Disney pulled out, the couple closed on the sale of their house and 10 acres for about $850,000 - nearly three times what Ike Broaddus paid for the property 10 years ago.
For others, such as Denise Bettinger, Disney's departure obliterated dreams of a comfortable future.
On Sept. 30, she was to have closed a sale for her house, her barn and 22 acres just across the street from the proposed Disney's America site.
``All we wanted to do was have a mortgage-free place and be able to retire comfortably,'' Bettinger, a 56-year-old alfalfa hay farmer, said of herself and her 60-year-old husband, Frank, who works in the defense industry. ``Now, it's back to a hayfield.''
``It's really been a boom-and-bust cycle,'' said Mark. A. Moorstein, a local development lawyer. ``There were a lot of people who, once Disney came in, went out and got options on properties and just got crunched.''
Land records show - and brokers, lawyers and trade publishers say - that speculative investors drove up Haymarket area land prices over the last year by three to six times their pre-Disney levels.
KEYWORDS: DISNEY AMERICA
by CNB