Disneyland Resort’s Future Appears Clouded : Development: Experts say as it now stands, the huge project in Anaheim is financially risky with low projected returns.

What was once viewed as a negotiating ploy by Walt Disney Co. is now being taken seriously: building the Disneyland Resort may be too risky a financial proposition.

While company officials have long said that the numbers don’t pencil out, they have refused to give specifics.

But a respected Los Angeles entertainment industry analyst, Jeffrey Logsdon of the brokerage Seidler Cos., said Friday that the $3-billion theme park and hotel project would, at best, produce a 10% annual return on Disney’s investment. That would be well below the return of 15% to 20% return that he believes Disney would need to go forward.

“For Disney to find a way to make financial sense out of this project,” Logsdon said, “there have got to be some changes in the capital structure and some better insight.”

The figures may help to explain why Disney had repeatedly put off a commitment to build the resort as the company seeks public funding.

Logsdon, managing director of the brokerage, which specializes in West Coast companies, discussed his projections after Disney said Thursday that it will delay for a year or longer its decision on whether to build Disneyland Resort. The resort would consist of a new theme park called Westcot, more than 5,000 hotel rooms and other amenities surrounding Disneyland.

Disney Chairman Michael Eisner proposed the new Southland theme park in 1990 as a cornerstone of what he called “the Disney decade.”

Disney Development Co., the planning and construction arm of the giant entertainment company, would not comment Friday on Logsdon’s calculations.

“The reason we are working so hard and the reason this is taking so long . . . is because this project is huge and very difficult from a financial perspective,” said Ken Wong, senior vice president of Disney Development.

The city of Anaheim, state and federal governments are involved in several proposals to provide as much as $1 billion for construction of Westcot. But the company will put off a decision on whether to proceed until all of the financing is in place, said Doug Moreland, Disney’s director of development.

Logsdon said his projection is based on an estimate that Disneyland has an operating income of $100 million to $200 million a year. If the second theme park were to earn about the same amount, then Disney’s return on its $2-billion investment would be 5%.

By financing much of the debt, Disney could earn a return of as much as 10%, Logsdon said. But for a project as large as a massive theme park resort, the company would need a return of at least 15% to make its risk worthwhile, the analyst said.

“I don’t think Westcot is the largest development project in the priority scheme of Disney,” he said.

The company is also proposing to build a theme park outside Washington, a second in Tokyo and a fourth park in Florida.

Other analysts expressed similar views.

“It’s important to recognize that Disney has a lot on its plate,” said Christopher P. Dixon, an analyst for the brokerage PaineWebber in New York.

The delay by Disney may indicate that the company is also re-evaluating Westcot in light of California’s lingering recession and the spending patterns at Southland amusement parks.

“Maybe they’ve changed some of their assumptions,” he said.