Disney Plans Test Track in Hidden Parking Lot

Walt Disney Imagineering, the creative think tank for the worldwide Magic Kingdom, plans to build an elevated test track in a hidden parking lot at its Glendale headquarters.

Disney officials have declined to discuss the specifics of the experimental amusement ride, other than to say it is too large to erect inside the firm’s complex of buildings in the Grand Central industrial area.

A request for a city building permit indicates that the track will be 188 feet long and 47 feet wide, in the shape of an elongated figure 8 that will rise up to 25 feet high on the ends of the loops, said Byron Foote, a city planner and hearing officer who will determine within a month whether the company should be granted a special permit.

Foote said he was told that vehicles on the track “will sometimes run fast.”

The track will be screened from public view and is expected to be in use for two years. Similar experiments have been built before on the parking lot, which is in an industrial area with no nearby residential neighbors, Foote said.

The track will displace 33 employee parking spaces, which will be relocated to other nearby company lots.

Imagineering has operated for more than 25 years in Glendale and is the city’s largest employer, with about 2,300 workers, city officials said. The company leases property from the Prudential Insurance Co.

Hundreds of artists, architects, set designers, animators and engineers create the designs and rides for Magic Kingdoms in Anaheim, Orlando and Tokyo. A fourth park is scheduled to open April 12 outside Paris.

Creations were also developed in Glendale for Epcot Center and the Disney MGM Studios in Florida, company spokeswoman Betsy Richman said.