Disney Vault
Member
Wasn't it mentioned long ago that Josh wanted the property and wanted to use the second floor for cast services. But chapek said no while he was president of parks and resorts
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DisneylandForward
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SuddenStorm
Well-Known Member
This was a rumor, yes. I think it was @TP2000 that reported it? Or at least had a great comment about it.
If I remember right it would have had a variety of cast member services like daycare, fitness center, and health services to improve working at Disneyland and would have likely attracted more talent to the park. It's the sort of amenities you add to attract world class talent to your workplace and get them to stay a long time.
Instead, Disney took the opposite approach and has greatly relaxed their standards for employee grooming and conduct to attract workers to the park.
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Disney Vault
Member
So I bet if Josh has his way and the garden walk goes on sale again (or more realistically if it gets foreclosed and auctioned off again) he won't pass up the opportunity
Vegas Disney Fan
Well-Known Member
Crazy that they wouldn’t pay $80 million for a piece of land that would not only connect their 2 largest pieces of land but also could be used for hotels and shopping when they paid $32 million for a tiny hotel that only provided enough land for a walkway to where they want to build a parking garage.
Seems shortsighted but maybe when you have Disney money you know you can always overpay and get it later if you decide you really need it.
SuddenStorm
Well-Known Member
Hasn't land around the resort been notoriously hard to aquire since the '60s for them?
Not sure "let's just hope we can overpay in the future" is sound business strategy
DrAlice
Well-Known Member
Well, it IS if you have a revolving door of executives. Chapek didn't want that on HIS balance sheets. From his perspective, the next exec can do what they want.
From the outside, it certainly looks like a culture of long-time stewardship at the company is severely lacking.
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Re-quoting this as I was gathering up multi-quotes on a lot of other mis-information.
This is the important point of the matter. It's a very specific commitment to spend money on a specific piece of property with kind of rough metrics attached to it. Is it a game changer in terms of 10 year spend? Not at all.
But when we start talking about this AND the Eastern Gateway AND Pandora for DCA AND it kind of sounds like a project in DL (not the Forward component) to come... it's actually a pretty good decade. We're probably in for four meaty projects and some pretty serious resort infrastructure changes by 2034, if they aren't lying of course.
... Several franchise attractions for the area have been floated, with Iger reiterating during the April 3 shareholder meeting an intention to bring a lush, green Avatar land to California.
“We will have enough room to build the equivalent of another Disneyland Park. And so then you start to think about, ‘Well what can we do here?’ ” D’Amaro says. “We haven’t told anything, any stories on Wakanda. We haven’t told any stories on Frozen, although it’s a 10-year old franchise. You think about franchises like Coco and Encanto. We almost have an endless stream of stories that we can tell.” ...
www.hollywoodreporter.com
“We will have enough room to build the equivalent of another Disneyland Park. And so then you start to think about, ‘Well what can we do here?’ ” D’Amaro says. “We haven’t told anything, any stories on Wakanda. We haven’t told any stories on Frozen, although it’s a 10-year old franchise. You think about franchises like Coco and Encanto. We almost have an endless stream of stories that we can tell.” ...
Disney Bets $60B Its Parks Will Power the Future
The $9.1 billion that the Josh D’Amaro-led unit reels in is an undeniable bright spot in Bob Iger’s empire. Now it’s being pushed to do even more.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
Does a particular resort's parks have a major attraction based on:
- Peter Pan
- Frozen
- Rapunzel
- Coco
- Encanto
- Moana
- Indy
- Zootopia
- Lion King
- Ratatouille
- Spider-Man and a Marvel Wild Card IP
- Star Wars
- Toy Story (at least 2)
- Pixar Wild Card IP
If yes: stop.
If no: build it.
ProjectXBlog
Well-Known Member
I deleted my other post because it felt like I was generalizing too much, but yeah. It just feels like we’re going in circles. Lion King in Paris is at least exciting because it hasn’t been done at any park yet outside of stage shows.
truecoat
Well-Known Member
It was sold in 2012 for an undisclosed price then again in 2018 for $80 million just to be clear.
Probably wrong thread but couldn't resist the last paragraph of another story on DisneylandForward:
"The importance of the parks to Disney’s bottom line is also showing up in the entertainment giant’s search for Iger’s successor. (Iger is expected to retire in 2026.) Josh D’Amaro, the chair of Disney Experiences, which includes the parks, is considered one of four front-runners for the job. Notably, it was Bob Chapek, formerly of the parks division, who initially succeeded Iger, though he was later ousted from the role."
www.latimes.com
"The importance of the parks to Disney’s bottom line is also showing up in the entertainment giant’s search for Iger’s successor. (Iger is expected to retire in 2026.) Josh D’Amaro, the chair of Disney Experiences, which includes the parks, is considered one of four front-runners for the job. Notably, it was Bob Chapek, formerly of the parks division, who initially succeeded Iger, though he was later ousted from the role."
Why Disney is doubling down on theme parks with a $60-billion plan
Disney's nearly $2-billion expansion plan for Disneyland highlights the importance of the company's theme parks for its bottom line.
www.latimes.com
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Someone buy the good doctor a bottle of champagne! She just summed it all up beautifully!
WaltWiz1901
Well-Known Member
Just keeping track...
TP2000
Well-Known Member
It was the 2018 sale that Bob Chapek purposely passed up on, even though multiple senior execs in TDA begged him to buy it. Chapek wasn't thrilled about it, but got convinced to make a bid because the TDA team desperately wanted the facility for a "Cast Campus" on the mall's entire upper floor. The Cast Campus was planned to house CM perks like subsidized child care, a medical clinic, pharmacy, banking, fitness center, CM community club rooms, a big CM store, etc., and use the 2,000+ parking spaces in the GardenWalk basement and structure for CM's.
The Cast Campus was a plan cooked up earlier in the 2010's by TDA, when they were having trouble attracting top talent to the hourly CM ranks and wages were rising quickly in the later 2010's. An earlier plan for the Cast Campus would have used the land Disney bought on Manchester north of the USCIS building. This was before things changed drastically in 2020 and they simply got rid of the higher standards and Disney Look for CM's when they finally reopened in 2021, which helped them widen the labor pool without big investment in a "Cast Campus" or other more traditional wage/benefits attractants for talent.
Disney was actually the second place bidder in 2018, and an investment firm in Dubai was the highest bidder and technically won. But within 30 days the Dubai firm had their financing collapse for the deal, and they backed out. Disney was then contacted as the second place bidder to buy it, but Chapek dug in and refused to buy it at his original bid. TDA execs were furious at him.
The auction then went to the third place bidder, a lowball offer from the brain trust that brought us flourescent llamas. The rest is history, and GardenWalk continues to flounder as a going concern. Even after the JW Marriott was built there.
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ThemeParkTraveller
Well-Known Member
I would also add TDR's Rapunzel to the list if Frozen Ever After is counting for the other resorts.
denyuntilcaught
Well-Known Member
Are we forgetting:
- Rapunzel going to TDR via Fantasy Springs
- Coco going to either MK or DAK (speculation but nearly confirmed)
- Encanto going to DAK (speculation but nearly confirmed)
- Moana going to MK (more speculative)
- Zootopia at DAK (confirmed but timeline TBD)
WaltWiz1901
Well-Known Member
By "major attraction", I took that to mean attractions on an E-ticket scope, not simply attractions in general
ThemeParkTraveller
Well-Known Member
"Loosely counts" seems accurate then, as I'm guessing it skirts the line between a high D and a low E similar to a few attractions on your list like Frozen Ever After or Crush's Coaster.
etc98
Well-Known Member
I was doing some playing around on Google Earth to see how big the Disneyland Forward site actually is. I was able to copy over all of Toontown (in green), all of Fantasyland other than iasw and the theater (in red), and all of Frontierland other than the Rivers of America (in blue).
Probably not all of this would actually fit given they need room for backstage and roads and other things, but that's a total of 15 rides, 4-5 dining locations, and 6 shops. Just goes to show (a) how much space there is, and (b) how good Disneyland was at packing things into the park.
Even if we use Galaxy's Edge, which has huge ride buildings and wastes a ton of space, there's still room for all of Galaxy's Edge (green), most of New Orleans Square other than Haunted Mansion (red), and Indiana Jones Adventure (blue).
Probably not all of this would actually fit given they need room for backstage and roads and other things, but that's a total of 15 rides, 4-5 dining locations, and 6 shops. Just goes to show (a) how much space there is, and (b) how good Disneyland was at packing things into the park.
Even if we use Galaxy's Edge, which has huge ride buildings and wastes a ton of space, there's still room for all of Galaxy's Edge (green), most of New Orleans Square other than Haunted Mansion (red), and Indiana Jones Adventure (blue).