Fantasyland Expansion Officially Begins

[edwardtc]

While it's been obvious that preparations have been underway to start the Fantasyland Expansion, it was made official today by means of documents filed with Orange County.

Walt Disney Imagineering filed 8 Notices of Commencement today with the Orange County Clerk, all regarding work specific to the Fantasyland Expansion. I have updated the "Permit Thread".

4 of the permits are for demolition of existing facilities, and the other 4 are for new buildings, including Chateau #1 & Tunnel, Cottage #1, Restaurant, and Merchandise Shop.

These all fall under what they're referring to as "Fantasyland Expansion - Area Development Package - Phase 1."

The Contractor listed on the Notices (permits) is Barton Malow - who appears to be a GIANT Construction Management firm with offices all over the US, including one in Orlando. Oddly, they don't highlight any Entertainment or Theme Park type projects on their website, so I can only presume that they submitted a Bid for this portion of the work and were awarded the contract that way.

Anyway, I thought this was exciting news. I'm sure I should have posted this in the Fantasyland Board, so a Mod can move it if they want to. It just seemed more fitting for the News Board at this moment in time.

[jt04]

Yes!

[wdwmagic]

Good spot and thanks for keeping ontop of the permits for us!

[WDW Vacationer]

Thanks Tom for doing the permit thread!

This is great! I'm excited!

[EPCOT Explorer]

It's HERE!


Meet and Greets or not, it's nice to see some REAL construction.

[Studios Fan]

Thanks for the update.

[wm49rs]

Great job keeping up with the filing of the permits. And thanks for the update!

[toolsnspools]

Thanks for following the permits Ed. I was there yesterday and the construction walls are definitely green. Not able to see much more than that from the existing FL. So I rode the Barnstormer and you can see absolutely nothing from there. You can't see anything from Astro Orbiter either. Unless someone has a Cessna or a backstage pass, we're not going to see much till this project goes vertical.

[raven]

Barton Malow was also collaboration with WDI on the Monsters Inc. Coaster.

[LudwigVonDrake]

Great news!!!

[EPCOT Explorer]

Originally Posted by raven

Barton Malow was also collaboration with WDI on the Monsters Inc. Coaster.

The unbuilt one?

[wdwfan94]

So is Little Mermaid not part of Phase 1?

[SirGoofy]

Originally Posted by wdwfan94

So is Little Mermaid not part of Phase 1?

Mermaid will open with Phase I.

[SirGoofy]

Originally Posted by EPCOT Explorer

The unbuilt one?

Unbuilt for now.

[edwardtc]

Originally Posted by wdwfan94

So is Little Mermaid not part of Phase 1?

Phase 1 is a big phase...they're probably just not done filing permits. And it could be that this contractor only has "Beauty and the Beast" land, and another contractor has "Mermaid Land". All the notices filed today were by one contractor.