Disney Park’s ‘Work Places East’ May Become Just a Place to Work

As Walt Disney Co. puts final touches on its second Anaheim park, a few issues are unresolved. What, for example, will become of the site listed on company attractions sheets as “Work Places East”?

Amusement park devotees will recall that Disney Chairman Michael Eisner enjoyed factory tours so much as a child that he ordered up some workplace exhibits for his new California Adventure. The exhibits would be cost-effective as well as entertaining, since sponsors would underwrite their cost. Indeed, Mondavi wines, Boudin bread and Mission tortillas have signed on.

But additional workplace exhibitors apparently were hard to come by. Disney executives once talked of including a chocolate-making attraction as well. When a California Adventure preview center opened, the concept drawings showed a candy factory, as well as aerospace and neon-light manufacturing exhibits.

Now the Work Places East site--beside a theater where a holographic Whoopi Goldberg will host a history movie--is up for grabs.

One option, according to a park insider: a meet ‘n’ greet area, where patrons mingle with workers dressed as Disney characters.

“Attractions and merchandise are fighting over the rest of it for office space,” the source said, adding that California Adventure was built without offices like those tucked away throughout Disneyland.

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E. Scott Reckard covers tourism for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-7407 and at scott.reckard@latimes.com.