New Disneyland Parking Garage and Transportation Hub

[TP2000]

I think all this talk of getting hourly CM's to ride the bus or train to work is noble, but rather useless. Disneyland requires CM's to work nights and weekends and holidays, all times when the bus schedule is down to skeleton service and the Metrolink train schedule is non-existent.

If Disneyland were an insurance office or a bank, working Monday thru Friday from 8am to 5pm with weekends and all major holidays off, paying the CM's to take the bus or train would work fine.

But Disneyland requires hourly CM's to be there from 5am to 2am, on weekends and holidays when the parks are busiest. When your shift ends at Midnight, there's no bus service to the rest of Orange County available at that time. And you'd need to wait until 5am before the trains start running again to get home, if you happen to live near a Metrolink station.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

Traffic congestion and affordability are so bad in Silicon Valley that a few big Bay Area tech firms like Facebook are actually building housing to help attract and retain workers.

https://www.google.com/amp/sf.curbe...development-techeis?client=ms-android-verizon

The concept of employee housing isn't unheard of at Disney. WDW's International Village, proposed in the 70s, would have housed foriegn EPCOT Center cast members.

 

[Darkbeer1]

Traffic congestion and affordability are so bad in Silicon Valley that a few big Bay Area tech firms like Facebook are actually building housing to help attract and retain workers.

https://www.google.com/amp/sf.curbe...development-techeis?client=ms-android-verizon

The concept of employee housing isn't unheard of at Disney. WDW's International Village, proposed in the 70s, would have housed foriegn EPCOT Center cast members.

Cedar Point does this, they have a "campus" on the actual Peninsula, and then more housing just off it that house International Workers who get a 6 month work visa that is called an "educational Visa" for them to learn English and find out about America.

Six Flags does the same thing, and even the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk uses the program. The employer is responsible for providing housing, and usually find a third-party to rent out a shared small apartment, or sometimes using College Campus Housing.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Traffic congestion and affordability are so bad in Silicon Valley that a few big Bay Area tech firms like Facebook are actually building housing to help attract and retain workers.

https://www.google.com/amp/sf.curbe...development-techeis?client=ms-android-verizon

The concept of employee housing isn't unheard of at Disney. WDW's International Village, proposed in the 70s, would have housed foriegn EPCOT Center cast members.

Walt Disney World does house employees in the International Programs and College Program.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

Walt Disney World does house employees in the International Programs and College Program.

Does it look like this?

 

[Phroobar]

I always saw it as a college co-ed dorm with attached bar.

 

[Stripes]

I can't help but look at that and think how desperately Disney would love to buy out the Camelot partially and the Tropicana in particular.

They could very easily create a Downtown Disney "East" using those two sides of the Pedestrian walkway. Or even build a hotel that dumps out directly onto the walkway with its own private security lines.

In the proposed state it is giving me HKDL Park Promenade vibes. Peek through the bushes for a look backstage or at Harbour Blvd.

I'm friends with the daughter of the folks that own the Tropicana. She's told me that Disney has approached her parents on numerous occasions to buy the hotel (and demolish it) with apparently very generous offers I might add. But, the owners always say no, because they actually live in one of the penthouses on the top floor of the hotel. The daughter's family frequently stays there with them and has invited us a few times as well. They are extremely nice and caring people.

 

[Darkbeer1]

and here is a piece of news that has direct relationship to parking and the city of Anaheim.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/platinum-732574-angels-city.html

>>
The team, which is in discussions with the city to repair the aging stadium, had cited game-day traffic, parking issues and environmental issues including noise and air quality among their concerns.

Councilwoman Kris Murray instructed city staff to conduct a traffic analysis in the Platinum Triangle and around Angel Stadium.

“We are pleased that LT Global worked with us in a timely and collaborative effort to address the impacts of their development on our fan experience,” Angels President John Carpino said in a statement. “We look forward to working with the city to finalize details on important transportation improvements for the Platinum Triangle in the coming weeks.”<<

http://ltplatinumcenter.com/

Currently, there is a parking structure for about 3,500 vehicles in the plans.

But still, the city isn't 100% happy with the situation, and why Councilperson Kris Murray has directed the city to work on an extensive traffic and parking assessment before the project moves forward.

So projects move on.

Also addressed at last night's city council meeting was the West Anaheim enhancements on Beach Blvd, and that the process is still in a very early age, and is currently dealing with taxing entities and school districts in looking into an agreement, and preliminary talks are just starting. So not much hope of using that large empty lot at Beach and Lincoln.

 

[TP2000]

Fascinating. Thanks again for the updates on this @Darkbeer1.

A couple decades ago I was involved socially with the Provost of the University of Washington, a typically huge and wealthy Pac 10 (back then) school with 40,000 undergrads on a sprawling, drop-dead-gorgeous campus in Seattle.

When this gentleman was on his second cocktail, he used to half-joke that there were only three things that really mattered in his Provost job and that he constantly focused on and worried about;

1. Football. If the Huskies were losing, no one was happy, from Prospective Freshmen to Aged Alumni.
2. Food quality. In the dining halls secondly, but most importantly in the Faculty Club.
3. Parking. If there was not a parking space available for students, Faculty or Alums, there was heck to pay.

He could ignore the multi-Billion dollar financial endowment tied to the stock market, the latest grad school research up for a Nobel prize, the plunging or soaring SAT averages of incoming Freshmen, ladies lingerie hanging from the trees on Fraternity Row, and any other minor triviality of higher education. But if Football, Food or Parking became an issue, the alarm sirens went off, the hate mail and bad press came pouring in, and everyone panicked about the future of the institution.

I feel like the same could be said about Disneyland. Except the last 10 years of revolving-door Presidents in TDA don't have the vision or the skills to focus on those three things all at once. Football could be analogous to the "show" in the parks. Food is food. And Parking is parking. In the last decade, Disneyland has done a great job on the show, a mediocre job on the food, and a horrible job at parking.

But Michael Colglazier and Bob Chapek get to valet park at the Grand Californian when they deem it neccesary to visit the parks with friends or family. Idiots.

 

[NobodyElse]

Thanks for the update. I saw that LT Platinum Center story this morning. I know that spot at St. College/Orangewood has been earmarked for this project for a while, but part of me wishes they could have situated it somewhere roughly between the stadium and ARTIC. Working out a land swap, I would have liked to see them use the green section instead of the blue section in the picture below. (Ideally, they would incorporate the Grove theater.)

Oh well. We should start some sort of pool where people can predict who will reach 90% occupancy first, and when - them or AGW.

 

[Darkbeer1]

First off, the Carousel is officially closed...

http://www.carouselinnandsuites.com/

OK, while who knows what the city council will be like in January, 2017. Let's look back in history.

Orange County in general has always cared about transportation and roads, look at the difference between Orange County and Los Angeles County in amounts spend on better freeways and roads.

Since Orange County was widening and improving the I-5 at about the same time as Disneyland being converted to a resort, the access was well designed, such as the Carpool lane exit from southbound 5 to Disneyland Drive and the flyover over Ball Road.

But almost every request that Disney has made to city, the city responds with "What about traffic and parking?", and as we can see, not just Disney, but any project in Anaheim (Such as the special Carpool lane exit for Gene Autry Way and Angel Stadium.).

As mentioned earlier, the special facility that Anaheim built to deal with "live" traffic control in the area was money well spent.

And the focus continues today. As this thread has discussed in length, the "City" wants better traffic flow, and that includes Harbor Blvd and reducing the amount of vehicles and pedestrians to other areas as best they can. Will that impact some of the guests staying current on Harbor between Manchester and Katella, yes, it will, but it is a minor issue in the eyes of the city, as they are looking at the overall situation.

And so is the county (Harbor Blvd is a main thoroughfare thought the area), OCTA, etc.

The last item at last night's council meeting was a Taxi cab issue. Amazing that the city requires a green fleet, and a certain percentage of vehicles to be ADA accessible. So it is amazing that these companies that have to follow all these regulations, verify their drivers with security checks and special licensing, and many other things that systems like Uber/Lyft are bypassing. No wonder they are cheaper, but as they say, you pay for what you get. A week doesn't go by without multiple news stories about Uber/Lyft drivers and the problems they cause.

So yes, TDA has majorly dropped the ball, and the city has forced them to make short-term fixes, but they can't make them do the long tern investments, except when projects like this one come up for city review.

Buena Park and Anaheim are looking at improving the traffic issues on Beach Boulevard currently, which is a good thing.

But you keep adding things like new areas at the Disneyland Resort, additional space for the Convention Center, now the LT Platinum project, and the possible redoing of Angel Stadium. (And one of the main goals by the Angels owner is to get more rights to develop the current parking lot, basically building parking structures and then use the remaining land to buy more shops/restaurants and housing, which of course, requires more parking overall.)

Looks like we will be playing Super Jumbo Jenga in the area for awhile.

 

[Darkbeer1]

Well, here is the big player that we all love and hate in regards to parking in SoCal and Theme Parks.

http://www.gibsontransportation.com/index.html

The company was mentioned during Tuesday's city council meeting.

 

[NobodyElse]

Very little. It's not abandoned, but it doesn't seem to change much month to month. Maybe they had to redesign some things? They are basically gutting the space of a dozen movie theaters/lobby/snack bars and turning it into two large theaters with multiple food service areas.

But it is suspicious that it's delayed by at least six months, if not longer.

I dropped by the North end of AGW today. There is work going on, and there is noticeable progress from my last visit. It looks like much of the interior framing is being completed, with some areas of sheet-rock already installed. There's plenty of work to be done, but at least they seem to be (mostly) done with the demo of the theater.

I'll try to post some not-very-glamorous photos later today.

 

[TP2000]

I dropped by the North end of AGW today. There is work going on, and there is noticeable progress from my last visit. It looks like much of the interior framing is being completed, with some areas of sheet-rock already installed. There's plenty of work to be done, but at least they seem to be (mostly) done with the demo of the theater.

I'll try to post some not-very-glamorous photos later today.

Thank you! I also drove by just this evening after leaving DTD, and it appears McFadden's Pub has closed, on the ground floor beneath House of Blues. The lights were off and no one was home on a Thursday evening at Happy Hour time. GardenWalk can't catch a break.

 

[NobodyElse]

Here are some photos. (Second attempt if you happened to see an earlier post.)

Overview of the HOB project. Note the new "Coming Spring 2017" graphics.

More of a close-up of some of the new interior dry-wall.

A quick, sloppy shot through the open construction wall door.

The back-side of HOB. Note the large hole in the wall (with roll-up door) and two new large beams running up the side and into the building.

The hole.

One of the beams.

That's it for now. I hope these help some of you visualize what's going on. (I'm really curious about those beams. It must have been determined that the project needed substantially more support than the original theaters.)

 

[TP2000]

Very nicely done @NobodyElse! Thanks for sharing that.

I enjoy that they've now changed the sign to "Spring 2017" from Summer 2016". I think your hunch is correct that the new steel beams offer a clue why this is taking so much longer; there was likely structural issues to be designed around.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

What time of day were the photos taken? Why aren't there workers inside?

 

[NobodyElse]

What time of day were the photos taken? Why aren't there workers inside?

This was roughly lunchtime (between noon and 1:00). There were workers inside, as well as coming and going to and from the site and construction office. I was actually doing my best to avoid taking their pictures. (BTW, that's part of the reason the pictures of the back-side are at somewhat awkward angles. There were guys up in the opening, as well as down below doing clean-up and I didn't want to be right on them while shooting.)

 

[NobodyElse]

Here are a few AGW bonus photos regarding the previously mentioned graphic window coverings.

Example 1, featuring "Mojito" and "Taverna".

Example 2, featuring "Grasslands Meat Market".

The above locations are on the East side of the North end of AGW on what they call the Main Level, across the courtyard from "Billy Beez", which you can somewhat see in one of my previous photos. There is no evidence of any development going on here, and even less on the barren wasteland of storefronts on the level above.

But, back across the courtyard, across from the (former?) McFadden's, under HOB we find this (indicating that Grasslands may someday be a real thing):

And to it's right, we see this:

So, at least those are actual construction walls. And (take it for what it's worth) the AGW site mentions this:
"Exciting happenings are well underway with the addition of House of Blues Anaheim, Rumba Room Live, Grasslands Meat Market and Mission Escape Games, soon-to-be opened."

And one last observation, Apparently MOJITO LATIN CUISINE AND BAR is a real place in West Palm Beach, FL. So, it might not be as purely fictional as we might think. (Side note: I can't help thinking there's a bit of chicken/egg going on here. Who would want to open up a shop or restaurant in a center void of customers, but why would customers show up to a center void of compelling locations?)

 

[TP2000]

Again, @NobodyElse, thank you for getting these shots. I can't bring myself to park and get out of the car whenever I drive by GardenWalk.

The "coming soon" restaurants and their signs have been there for at least two years, if not approaching three years now. But the chicken and the egg dilemma is probably real for these places. It would be such a huge surprise to have House of Blues open next April, and by June have several new restaurants and nightclubs open directly adjacent to them. Talk about rising from the ashes!