Downtown Disney Raises the Ante for Competitors
Today’s opening of Downtown Disney--an eclectic collection of 28 stores, snazzy restaurants and nightclubs--marks the latest entry in Southern California’s burgeoning entertainment-retail market.
Like Universal CityWalk and the Block in nearby Orange, Disney is betting that its Downtown Disney--wedged between Disneyland and a new theme park--will give a young-adult edge to the traditional family-oriented resort area.
The retail and food esplanade is part of Disney’s $1.4-billion expansion in Anaheim aimed at enticing tourists to hang around longer by offering them somewhere to shop, play games, catch a movie or hang out at a bar without even getting in their cars--so long as their wallets hold up.
Downtown Disney packs a punch. It features the hip House of Blues, chef Joachim Splichal’s new Catal Restaurant & Uva Bar, and the West Coast’s first ESPN Zone, a sports bar, restaurant and game center.
Like CityWalk, Downtown Disney figures to draw tens of thousands of people spilling from the theme parks. Disney also hopes its retail hub--which has no admission fee--will be a draw in itself, apart from the theme parks, stealing away customers from other so-called shoppertainment venues that have emerged in recent years, such as the Irvine Spectrum.
But it’s not clear yet how successful Downtown Disney will be in drawing locals, once the curiosity appeal wears off. After all, many Southlanders go out of their way to avoid both traffic and tourists.
Further, although Disney has a similar attraction in Florida, it is now immersing itself in increasingly crowded waters that others have found difficult to navigate. And it’s taking the plunge amid signs of a retail and economic slowdown.
In Anaheim area alone, two development groups are struggling to bring major projects to life. Gotcha Glacier backers have repeatedly delayed their project as they seek critical financing for a towering indoor snowboarding and surfing park.
Pointe Anaheim backers also are still trying to line up financing for the shops and hotels they hope to build across the street from Disneyland.
Some developers say Orange County remains a fertile field and that the additional projects--especially the Disneyland expansion--will benefit a wide range of businesses by drawing more people to the area.
Indeed, the Disney Resort is expected to generate about 20 million visits a year--with strong connections between the retail complex and new theme park that are designed to encourage visitors to stay a while longer.
Parking trams tempt theme park-goers with views of eye-catching storefronts; a monorail is positioned to whisk shoppers back to Tomorrowland.
Cheryl French is an example of how the strategy can work. The Rancho Santa Margarita homemaker was riding a tram from the parking lot to Disneyland when she caught a glimpse of the huge World of Disney store.
“It really attracted us away from Disneyland,” said French, 37, as she roamed through the retail hub with her two daughters. “How did that happen?”
Tourists were also feeling the tug of the shopping and entertainment district even before it officially opened. Last time New Yorkers Tim and Dawn Etta visited Disneyland, they spent two days at the theme park, a day at Universal Studios and checked out Laguna Beach and Beverly Hills. But this year they barely needed a car.
“Because they opened Downtown Disney, we stayed here as opposed to leaving,” said Tim Etta, a 34-year-old engineer. “We thought we would go to Laguna Beach, but we decided to stay in Anaheim for the week.”
Disney is clearly ratcheting up the stakes in the fiercely competitive shopping and entertainment arena.
Its noisy, pulsing ESPN Zone, for example, figures to be a magnet for young men, as Van’s Skate Park has been for a slightly younger crowd at the Block.
“It’s new, it’s different,” said Michael Keegan, a 21-year-old Chino Hills resident who normally hangs out at the Block but this week sampled Downtown Disney. “The Block’s been around for a couple of years now.”
But for Downtown Disney to draw locals repeatedly, the eateries must be consistently good, said Dick Curtis, a retired private investor from Villa Park, who strolled Downtown Disney in the rain Wednesday night with his wife, Patty.
“I think the restaurants are the key,” said Curtis, 57. “It’s not the shops that are going to draw people. And you can go to the movies anywhere.”
Indeed, the collection of stores that Disney has assembled--which sell books, jewelry, body lotion, candles, surfwear and other items--was never intended to compete with a MainPlace/Santa Ana or South Coast Plaza.
“[Downtown Disney] is an entertainment and dining destination; it’s by no means a major shopping experience,” said Ian Brown, senior marketing consultant of Grubb & Ellis’ retail properties division in Newport Beach. “The malls aren’t going to lose any sleep over Downtown Disney.”
Prices are another matter.
A “grilled tuna sandwich a la Nicoise” at Splichal’s Catal costs $12.95, while a “Zone Burger” at ESPN Zone is $9.79.
Starabilias, which sells novelty items and signed memorabilia, offers a life-sized Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi “Blues Brothers” for $3,000 or an alien prop used in “The X-Files” movie for $5,000.
Of course, the stores have more affordable options.
At the sprawling World of Disney Store--the largest shop in the retail zone--visitors can buy a dizzying selection of branded products, from a Disney shot glass for $5.50 or a “Minnie’s Essentials” robe for $98, to a Tinker Bell cookie Jar priced at $35 or a Winnie the Pooh colander for $22.
The prices didn’t seem to faze Kathleen Robertson, 47, or Michele Hoover, 49, friends who visit Disneyland so often that park workers call them “Disnoids.”
Hoover stopped outside ESPN last week after the retail area’s “soft opening” to check out the menu.
“If we got our husbands in here, I don’t think we’d get them out,” she said.
With the pressure building, other developers are making adjustments, or finding fresh ways to call attention to their projects.
Irvine Spectrum Center recently announced it will add a 10-story carousel to a new heavily retail section.
Magic Mountain, known for its thrill seeker riders, will add three new roller coasters this year, bringing the Valencia park’s total to 15.
Pointe Anaheim, originally conceived as a collection of shops, hotels and live theaters, is now considering eliminating the theaters and adding more hotel rooms, which would “better complement” Downtown Disney, said Robert H. Shelton, Pointe Anaheim LLC’s spokesman.
Universal Studios said this week it intends to begin free round-trip shuttle service from a site near Disneyland to Universal City to anyone who buys a ticket to Universal Studios.
