The Price of Progress Is Building in Anaheim

As Disneyland and Anaheim embark on the most ambitious make-over of the resort and its surroundings in 40 years, construction cranes are rivaling the Matterhorn for dominance on the city’s skyline, and officials are racing to keep dust, fumes and jackhammers from driving tourists away.

But with traffic already jammed by work on sewer lines along major thoroughfares and by closed freeway ramps, and the city’s own studies predicting a drop in the number of visitors to Anaheim over the next five years, city and Disney officials worry that their multibillion-dollar building boom may scare visitors away from the Happiest Place on Earth.

“It’s a big risk. It’s going to be a challenge to make it friendly for people to come here,” said Anaheim City Councilman Tom Tait. “All it takes is a few people beginning to say that it’s not going to be easy to get in and out of Disneyland to cause a major drop in dollars over the next few years, not just for Anaheim, but for the whole region.”

More than 40 million tourists visit Orange County each year, pumping $5.5 billion into the county’s economy. While Anaheim does not maintain statistics on how many of those tourists visit the city, urban planning experts say the number is probably over half. In 1996, more than 15 million people visited Disneyland alone.

With the Magic Kingdom looking tired, there is wide agreement that to maintain that economic engine, the city and Disneyland need a face-lift.

But until it’s all over in 2001, there will be asphalt poured, nails driven or dirt moved somewhere in Anaheim virtually every day without letup. The new $1.4-billion Disney theme park, Disney’s California Adventure, is set to break ground on Disneyland’s parking lot in March, and a $150-million expansion and renovation of the neighboring Convention Center is due to begin in August.

Then, too, there is $510 million worth of street, sewer, electrical and telephone cable work the city has already started along every major street around Disneyland to accommodate the added service demands of the new theme park.

Nearby, the California Department of Transportation and the Orange County Transportation Authority are spending $1.1 billion to widen a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 5 from six to 12 lanes. Much of the work will be done this year on a stretch of roadway that not only runs through Anaheim, but delivers millions of visitors to the Convention Center and Disneyland.

Across town, Disney is renovating Anaheim Stadium at a cost of $100 million, and Caltrans and OCTA are spending another $180 million to widen the Riverside Freeway.

Combine that with other city projects to remodel its resort area and the rest of Anaheim, and the price tag totals $4.2 billion. Measured both by the number of public and private agencies involved, and the amount of work being done in a short period of time, it is one of the most intensive urban construction efforts in Southern California history.

With all that in the works, observers who study Orange County development say keeping construction unobtrusive will not be easy.

“It’s clear that the city is doing many of the right things for tourist dollars in the long run. Now, it’s up to the planners and local officials to make sure that there isn’t going to be too great a disruption in the short run,” said Mark Baldassare, professor of urban and regional planning at UC Irvine.

“There are an awful lot of things to be done at once, and they are all dependent on each other, and they all need to be done.”

It is no secret to Anaheim officials that their prized tourism industry is likely to suffer during construction.

According to projections done for the city by Los Angeles-based PKF Consulting, the burst of building will make it hard for Anaheim hotels to fill their guest rooms until 2001, when the work ends and the new theme park opens.

This year, PKF predicts demand for hotel rooms in the city will drop by 4.1%, declining further in 1998. And while the PKF study predicts that hotels will raise their room rates to maintain revenues, half a dozen Anaheim hoteliers told The Times they have no plans to do so.

Even if room rates go up, it is not until two years into the next century, when the current construction boom is complete, that PKF expects renewed vigor in the hotel industry.

If room rates do not rise as PKF predicts, Anaheim could face a shortfall in the revenues it is counting on to pay off the $510 million it borrowed this month to pay for infrastructure improvements associated with the Disney project and the convention center expansion.

The $510 million in bonded indebtedness is to be repaid over the next 40 years from revenues generated by Anaheim’s 15% hotel bed tax, along with increased sales and property taxes the Disney project will eventually generate.

According to the PKF study, Disney predicts attendance at the theme park may decline over the next several years as families postpone their biennial or triennial trips to coincide with the new park’s opening.

“One of our biggest challenges over the next five years is making sure that guests continue to come to Disneyland and that they don’t find the construction a deterrent,” Disneyland spokesman Tom Brocato said. “Because let’s face it, we’re gonna have some dust around here.”

City officials compare handling the construction morass to managing traffic snarls after baseball games, and say they plan to be ready for it.

In January, the city hired an engineering firm for $926,000 to choreograph work at the various sites. The schedule is not finished, and consultants at the firm say they have yet to add construction plans from Caltrans to their drafts. City officials have yet to brief the city council on their plans.

Late last year, the city secured $2.5 million in federal, state and private moneys to buy and install a sophisticated traffic management system to synchronize traffic signals on its major streets. A major component of that system, dubbed SCOOT, had its first test Tuesday.

And this month, the city, Disney and the Anaheim Visitors and Convention Bureau hired a public relations firm to put a positive spin on the construction. The contract with Irvine-based Nelson Communications is not final, but city officials say the effort could cost Anaheim several hundred thousand dollars.

“Our opportunity is to prove the economists wrong, and not only to maintain levels of visitors, but to minimize problems during construction and end up with a gain,” Anaheim deputy city manager Tom Wood said. “I believe we can do that.”

Among the things planned to ease visitor woes is a public construction hotline, and possibly hiding construction sites with murals. City officials say they will announce more specifics soon.

While Disney officials declined to speculate on how construction on the new park will affect visitors to Disneyland, they acknowledge that the Monorail, the train that takes visitors from the theme park to various hotels, will be out of service for long stretches.

Outside the park, Anaheim crews will be completely refurbishing bordering streets, changing the name of West Street to Disney Way and putting trees, plantings and benches on new, wider thoroughfares. Just two blocks from Disneyland, the city is negotiating to buy and demolish nine homes in order to broaden Katella Avenue. “We are really excited about trying to turn all this construction into an attraction,” said Douglas Moreland, vice president of development for the new Disney theme park. “In the 1950s, when Walt Disney built Disneyland, the public never got to experience that. This time, visitors can be part of history. We think they will come to be part of what’s going on.”

Picking her way on a recent day through the mud that has replaced the sidewalk on Harbor Boulevard while construction crews work to sink utility lines underground, Darlene Skinner, 48, didn’t share Moreland’s enthusiasm.

In Anaheim from Alberta, Canada, to visit Disneyland for the first time, Skinner said she has been awakened every day of her stay by jackhammers at 8 a.m. “It’s kind of yucky, to tell you the truth. It’s not very nice,” Skinner said. “You understand it has to be done, but, well, there’s noise, there’s dust; I guess I didn’t expect it.”

Larry VanSlette, general manager of the Ramada Inn on Harbor where Skinner is staying, said occupancy at the motel has dropped 20% since construction began in December. VanSlette said the motel’s shuttle to Disneyland, which most guests use, can’t get closer to the Ramada than a muddy 200 yards away.

He said the motel expects to lose more business in the spring.

“We get people who come in who don’t want to stay because of it; people who check out early because of it. It’s pretty much a mess,” VanSlette said. “We’ve survived it, but it is causing us some pain.”

At the Anaheim Hilton, one of the largest hotels in the city, managers are looking for ways to make the coming work at the Convention Center next door as easy on guests as possible.

“We’re trying to attract more in-house corporate meetings, events where people rarely leave the hotel,” hotel spokesman Patrick Hynes said. “We’ll have to keep our guests as contained inside the hotel as possible while this is going on. Aside from that, we have to figure out a way to get the word out that Anaheim is still in operation.”

At Anaheim City Hall, officials are unfurling maps of construction sites and listing the problems they face: How to provide parking for thousands of construction workers; how to make sure too many streets aren’t closed or impassable at once; how to bring in construction materials without stopping traffic.

“I think it’s fair to say that this is complex. But we’ve been working on this in earnest for a number of years, so we’re really as ready as we can be,” Anaheim director of public works Gary Johnson said.

“Our aim is, when people see their driveways filled with dirt, when it gets noisy from drills, that they’ll say, ‘Well, I can take it, because I can see the end of this.’ ”

Also contributing to this report was Times correspondent Debra Cano.

* BIG PLANS BY THE ‘BIG A’: Anaheim officials hope a master land-use plan will help improve the stadium area. B3

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Growing Pains

The massive remake of Anaheim shifts into a busier mode in March when construction of Disney’s new California Adventure theme park begins. Along with Convention Center and Anaheim Stadium make-overs as well as a major freeway widening and miscellaneous improvements, it is one of the most intensive construction efforts in Orange County. All changes are expected to cost in the neighborhood of $4.2 billion. A closer look at the parts:

1. Disney California Adventure

Overview: Separate theme park on Disneyland parking lot; will include luxury hotel and more than 200,000 square feet retail, dining and entertainment center

Construction: Begins in March, ends 2001

Cost: $1.4 billion

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2. Convention Center

Overview: Enlarged to 1.4 million square feet, including more meeting rooms, larger lobby and reception area

Construction: Begins in August, continues until late 1999

Cost: $150 million

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3. Anaheim Stadium Remodeling

Overview: Major section of outfield seating removed with other changes to give the Big A a new retro look

Construction: Began fall 1996 and ends spring 1998

Cost: $3.26 billion

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4. Santa Ana Freeway Widening

Overview: 10 miles between Beach Boulevard and Garden Grove/Orange/Santa Ana freeways interchange will be doubled from six to 12 lanes

Construction: Began December 1996 and continues through 2000

Cost: $1.1 billion

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Anaheim Resort Areawide Improvements

In addition to these specific projects, a 1,100-acre area surrounding Disneyland and the Convention Center will get improvements including landscaping, signage, transportation and underground utilities. Right-of-way acquisition was secured for 154 parcels of land to facilitate the improvements and street widening. Work began in 1995 and continues through 2001.

Cost: $510 million

Expansion Tally

Summary of major public and private projects in Anaheim, 1997 through 2001. In thousands:

Project: Cost

Santa Ana Freeway widening: $750,000

Public Works (Includes Anaheim Resort area, street construction and rail improvements): $564,050

Riverside Freeway widening: $180,000

Eastern Transportation Corridor: $165,000

Convention Center expansion: $150,000

Anaheim Stadium remodeling: $100,000

Public Utilities-Electric (Includes substation and communication system improvements, residential expansion): $94,810

Public Utilities-Water (Includes water main replacements, new water transmission mains): $39,090

Community Development (Includes Koll Anaheim Center and UCI Extension building): $17,900

Parks, Recreation & Community Services (Includes Anaheim Hills clubhouse: $10,680

Police & Fire (Includes Anaheim Canyon substation and fire station modifications): $9,650

Total Public Projects: $2,081,180

Private Development

Disneyland theme park expansion: $1,400,000

New commercial, retail, housing: $690,175

Total private development: $2,090,175

Total cost all development: $4,171,355

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Room Availability

In addition to the dust, noise and traffic problems that will accompany Anaheim’s great project, there is an economic downside. Hotel room occupancy is projected to drop significantly until 2002, when construction will be finished. Projected hotel room occupancy by fiscal year:

1996: 69.1%

2001: 64.4%

2007: 71.4%

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Want to Learn More?

For more information, call (714) 254-5162 or visit Anaheim’s home page on the World Wide Web at https://www.anaheim.net. For Disney California Adventure information, call (714) 956-6732 or 781-0241.

Source: City of Anaheim

Researched by ESTHER SCHRADER / Los Angeles Times