Disney Postpones Decision on $3-Billion Anaheim Resort : Theme park: It won’t commit to project until at least next spring when environmental impact report is done, a company official says.
The Walt Disney Co. will not decide until at least next spring whether to invest $3 billion to build a new theme park resort near Disneyland, according to the company official in charge of the project.
Until now, Disney has said it would decide by December if it would commit to building the complex.
As conceived, the Disneyland Resort project would consist of a futuristic world-class amusement park with an international theme. The park would be built in the present-day parking lot of Disneyland. It would be surrounded by three new hotels, all connected by monorail and landscaped walkways.
Those components, however, have been subject to change. Many of the details depend on what comes out of hearings on the environmental impact report, a complicated document the size of a phone book that reviews how a proposed project will affect the surrounding area in terms of noise, traffic, air and water pollution.
The report was due for completion by summer, according to the original schedule. The report is now expected by the end of the year.
“It’s taken longer than we anticipated,” said Kerry Hunnewell, a Disney Development Co. vice president who heads the Anaheim project. “Perhaps we were being too optimistic.”
Anaheim citizens and city officials, together with Disney officials, are expected to review and revise the report for several months. Only when the report is approved--which will not occur until next spring at the earliest--will Disney decide whether to proceed with the resort, Hunnewell said.
There have been some indications lately that Disney may be having second thoughts about the project.
Walt Disney Imagineering in Glendale, which designs and supervises constructions of the company’s theme parks, laid off about 400 workers this summer. The company said at the time that layoffs were because of completion of Euro Disneyland outside of Paris. Still, the company will need to gear up Imagineering when it comes time to build new facilities in Anaheim.
Since Euro Disneyland has not done as well as expected, there has been speculation that the company may slow its expansion plans. That may be wise considering the sluggish California economy, which shows no signs of improvement.
Disneyland reported having a good summer, but not a spectacular one considering it had invested more than $15 million in its new “Fantasmic!” special effects show and spent heavily throughout the West to publicize its arrival.
A source close to some Anaheim landowners who have been involved in serious negotiations with Disney for some property it will need to build the resort says that talks have ground to a virtual halt. The source, who spoke on condition that neither he nor the landowners be identified, said that Disney officials told them they want to postpone a decision until after the election.
Hunnewell said he cannot talk about any real estate dealings as a matter of company policy. Overall, he denied that there has been any foot-dragging in preparing the project.
“We have not in any way delayed or slowed up in our effort to establish the feasibility of this project,” he said, “both in getting the EIR out and understanding the basic economic feasibility of the project.”
Two observers of the Anaheim real estate scene said they believe that Disney has an option to buy the nine-story Grand Hotel on the east side of the park. The 27-year-old hotel is one of the largest in the immediate vicinity of the resort expansion area.
Disney reportedly has until December to decide whether to buy the hotel from an investment group in Santa Monica. The general partner of the group declined comment on the deal. It has been listed for two years and went on the market with an asking price of $28 million.
Disney has been shopping for land around Disneyland for two years now. It has bought many of the small motels on the famed park’s fringe and paid $30.2 million in December, 1990, for a 23-acre abandoned trailer park cater-corner from the Magic Kingdom.
In one of its most recent deals, Disneyland officials have started the procedure to tear down the old Global Van Lines warehouse on Harbor Boulevard at the Santa Ana Freeway interchange. The site will be used to provide more behind-the-scenes yard space. The park has been especially squeezed since starting construction of a new Mickey’s Toon Town attraction behind Fantasyland and the “It’s a Small World” ride.
But eventually, the space will likely figure into the Disneyland Resort expansion, if it is indeed built. The warehouse site would become the home of a new multistory administration building. It would take the place of the park’s present administration building, which would be removed to make way for the resort.
