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Walt Disney World has always been a magical place.

But it’s going to take true magic for Walt Disney Company to pull of its most recent endeavor, constructing a luxury vacation-home development at Walt Disney World in Florida. The 980-acre development proposed by the company last week will consist of 450 homes priced between $1.5 million and $8 million.

Matt Kelly, vice president of Disney resort real estate development, noted in a that the company is using the development as a way to tap into the affluent market. This is something the company has been doing slowly over the past few years by offering VIP park tours and wine-tasting events, he said.

While it might be a great time to start building what will inevitably be a decade long project because of low construction costs, the project seems like a leap of faith.

Home prices in Orlando have dropped more than 50 percent over the past three years. The average home price in Orlando is currently $243,000, and unemployment is more than 11 percent.

The idea of tapping into the affluent market is smart. If money is tight for most Americans, then why not focus on the few out there who do have expendable cash? But at the same time, Disney is such a niche. It’s great for younger kids but just doesn’t seem like the place a family envisions going every year for multiple decades.

Disney has made real estate gambles in the past that have paid off. In the 1990s it constructed a real estate development known as Celebration that sits adjacent to the Walt Disney World theme park. Celebration consists of houses ranging from $185,000 to $4 million and were meant to be first homes, not vacation homes. More than 6,000 homes have been sold on the 4,900-acre development.

The first 30 homes of Disney’s new luxury development will be constructed by the end of next year and will go on sale later this year. Interested buyers must put down $25,000 to be placed on the reservation list.