Disney Proposes New $1-Billion Theme Park : Entertainment: Company pits Anaheim and Long Beach in competition for the new tourist attraction.
Taking a look into tomorrowland, Walt Disney Co. said Friday that it hopes to build a $1-billion theme park in Southern California in the next decade and reinvigorate 35-year-old Disneyland with dozens of new attractions.
The proposed new park will pit Anaheim and Long Beach against each other in a high-stakes game to become the Southland’s premier tourist stop. But Disney officials warned that without government assistance to solve traffic problems, a new park will remain a fantasy.
The improvements at Disneyland, the nation’s second most popular amusement park after Walt Disney World in Florida, will begin immediately and will be phased in over the next 10 years. Company officials have described the costly expansion and remodeling as the largest in the park’s history.
“This is the ‘90s--the decade we re-invent the Disney experience, not just in California, but worldwide,” Michael D. Eisner, Disney’s chairman and chief executive, said at a press conference Friday in Anaheim.
Eisner said the company’s 10-year plans call for the addition at the Magic Kingdom of a slew of rides based on hit movies--including “The Little Mermaid,” the “Indiana Jones” series and the upcoming “Dick Tracy,” giving Disneyland a more glitzy, Hollywood flavor.
He also detailed plans to add two new theme areas--Mickey’s Starland and Hollywoodland, a major new area of the theme park that will be a fantasy re-creation of Hollywood Boulevard. The Tomorrowland section of the park also will be completely redone.
Disney has been considering construction of a second amusement park in Southern California for at least four years. Eisner said the company wants to build the new park in Anaheim near Disneyland or in Long Beach. But the project is contingent on government cooperation to resolve traffic and parking problems.
“The problems are enormous with the infrastructure--in terms of traffic systems, exit roads, parking, the needed amount of land.” Eisner said. “A second gate is beyond the capacity of the Walt Disney Co. Without the interest of citizens, the city council and the mayor (of either city), it will never happen.”
In an interview after the press conference, Eisner said there would have to be some kind of governmental financial support “in things like infrastructure.” He noted that in France and Florida, the company has been able to win concessions on issues ranging from zoning to widening roads.
“We don’t build highways,” Eisner said. “Unless we have a partnership,” the project will not be built.
Whether Anaheim or Long Beach wins the new attraction “depends a lot on which one wants us more,” Eisner said. He estimated that the cost of the new park could be well over $1 billion and said the company hopes to begin developing it by the end of the decade.
In Anaheim, a second park could be added on 40 acres already owned by the company near Disneyland. There are another 30 undeveloped acres within Disneyland in the so-called “backstage” areas. Eisner also said current parking lots might be used, if alternative parking space could be found.
“Or we could use a combination of those areas,” he said.
Anaheim Mayor Fred Hunter enthusiastically endorsed the proposal for a second theme park, and city officials said they are prepared to arrange off-site parking and transportation to a new facility, if that is what it would take to win the new park.
In Long Beach, meanwhile, Disney officials met Thursday with city officials, showing them drawings and slides of a nautical-themed park. Disney now leases 55 acres--where the Queen Mary and Spruce Goose attractions are located--and has an option to develop another 256 acres, now mostly under water.
“It would obviously be ocean-oriented and an educational-type attraction with a nautical and water theme,” said Long Beach Mayor Ernie Kell. “We’re excited about the possibility, as long as the traffic and financial implications are attractive.”
Even so, Eisner was cautious in emphasizing that the second theme park is desirable from the company’s standpoint, but far from definite.
“Unless we can solve the problems in California, the state as a Disney destination is going to become less important as Florida becomes more important,” he said, referring to Disney’s hugely successful, 30,000-acre Walt Disney World in Orlando.
In fact, almost two years ago, Disney scuttled plans to build a $611-million theme park and shopping mall in downtown Burbank--after 15 years and endless discussions with city officials there--when it determined that estimated revenue would not support the project.
Far more definite than a second Southland theme park are the company’s plans to spruce up and expand Disneyland.
In 1991, Eisner said, the Muppets will invade Disneyland with a Muppets stage show. The park also will add a Young Indiana Jones ride, similar to one in Florida in which the movie hero survives flipped Jeeps, flash fires and rolling boulders.
Two years later, in 1993, Mickey’s Starland is scheduled to open, coinciding with the corporate mascot’s 65th birthday. The new themed area will feature a birthday party show, a chance for customers to shake Mickey’s hand, plus a Muppet Movie in “Muppetvision 3-D.” A “Little Mermaid” attraction based on the hit film also will be added.
Tomorrowland--with its outdated Mission to Mars ride--will be completely refurbished in 1994. While turnstiles will continue to click at the most popular attractions--Star Tours and Space Mountain--new rides will include two outer-space rides--an alien encounter and Plectu’s Fantastic Galactic Review. A new 3-D movie by film maker George Lucas, creator of the park’s Captain Eo ride, will be added and an entire second story will be built, so that sky walks will crisscross all of Tomorrowland.
An attraction based on the Dick Tracy movie will be added in 1996, giving park patrons the chance to chase crooks through city streets in racing police sedans.
Some of the most elaborate changes will happen in early 1999, with Disneyland adding Hollywoodland--complete with a white-lettered sign--with four new attractions: a Toon Town ride and Oversized Baby Buggy ride, both of which have patrons careening through scenes from the hit movie “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”
Two rides planned for the new Hollywoodland are borrowed from Walt Disney World: the Great Movie Ride, which lets customers travel through recreations of movie classics, and Superstar TV, in which selected patrons will be able to appear in classic episodes of “I Love Lucy” or the “Johnny Carson Show.”
Eisner, who joined Disney six years ago, declined to reveal the cost of the additions other than to say he hoped they would be financed by Disney’s earnings and that each attraction must meet its company-required return on investment.
BIDDING WAR--The Walt Disney Co.’s expansion plans pit the cities of Long Beach and Anaheim against each other. Page 31
