47 Square Miles & What has not been used.

[TURKEY]

How much land has been purchased since Walt originally made his purchases?

 

[KentB3]

How much land has been purchased since Walt originally made his purchases?

If I recall correctly, 43.1 square miles of land was purchased by Walt Disney. So if 47 sq. mi. is the current amount of land covered by Walt Disney World, I guess 3.9 square miles has been purchased since Walt originally made his initial purchases.

I may be wrong about this, but it seems to be the most likely answer! :animwink:

 

[LaughingGravy]

If a large percentage of the available land was used by new theme parks it would be impossible to "See everything" in the usual 14 night stay.

Usual 14 night stay!? Count me in as jealous.

 

[dvcnut39]

According to http://www.rcid.org/ (Reedy Creek Improvement District official website)

Disney has used:

Residential - 11 acres .04 %

Retail/ Restaurant - 145 acres 0.58%
Office Space - 50 acres 0.20%
Other Comercial - 49 acres 0.20%

Resort Hotels - 1,842 acres 7.39%
Campgrounds - 277 acres 1.11%
Golf Courses - 940 acres 3.77%

Major Theme Parks - 1,692 acres 6.79%
(Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney/MGM Studios, Animal Kingdom)
Minor Theme Parks - 341 acres 1.37%
(Blizzard Beach, Typhoon Lagoon, River Country, Disney Speedway, Discovery Island, Wide World of Sports)
Other Entertainment - 204 acres 0.82%

Support Facilities - 689 acres 2.76%

Roads - 1,565 acres 6.28%
Other Public Facilities - 867 acres 3.48%

Agriculture - 1,012 acres 4.06%

Undeveloped Open Space - 6,096 acres 24.46%

Conservation - 7,617 acres 30.56%
Water Bodies - 1,527 acres 6.13%
(Reedy Creek Swamp, Bay Lake, Seven Seas Lagoon, World Showcase Lagoon, Village Lake, Lake Buena Vista, Club Lake)

TOTAL 24,924 acres 100.0%

Above does not include areas removed from RCID (Town of Celebration, Disney Wildlife Preserve)

Hope this helps! :sohappy:

You can't get too much of a better answer than this. Once again, you're the best.

 

[donsullivan]

An article I read said that Disney purchased about 12,000 acres in Osceola county so that they could "build out" the Walt Disney World Resort if they wished. Thus the "wildlife preserve" acerage is actually in Osceola and not at WDW any longer.

What your describing sounds like the property in South Osceola County that used to be known as Walker Ranch. When Disney was developing the master plan for Celebration they had some wetlands areas they wanted to fill in as part of the development plan. Fortunately, you can't just do that so they went ahead and bought that land and agreed to keep it in it's natural state as concession to get the approvals that they needed for Celebration.

Also, the area that now makes up Celebration was ceded out of the RCID development area and into the newly created Celebration Improvement District many years ago. This was done so that RCID would not have residents to which they would have to answer as it related to for what they wanted to do with the land in WDW.

 

[DVC_Couple_PA]

This was done so that RCID would not have residents to which they would have to answer as it related to for what they wanted to do with the land in WDW.

This was actually one of the major reasons why Walt's EPCOT was never built.

 

[Dukeblue1016]

I'm surprised some of you don't like to see other things over the tree-tops, I guess I'm the minority then because I love it (as long as its not too much). If I could see like 7 hotels and 11 rides all bunched up from another park looking crowded... yeah that'd bug me, but as some others have said, the peek-a-boo affect is something I LOVE.

My favorite picture from all of my 3423565645634948752430573204 disney pictures is one from the Beach Club where you're looking out over the lagoon BEFORE the BoardWalk, and you can see the Tower of Terror just standing out on its own. You have NO IDEA whats around it (based on your sight that is) and it just looks like an old rickety hotel off in the distance and I loved that. Also, the swan I have heard many times is the tallest structure in disney... or the single-handedly tallest building... something of that sort, so I like being able to see it in the distance, plus it gives me a better sense of direction.

ANYWAYS, more on topic... you have to imagine EVENTUALLY they will build another park, heavy emphasis on the "eventually." I'm 20 years old... I imagine when I'm say 40 years old and taking my family to disney (this thought really excites me) that there will have to be another park.

Don't get me wrong I LOVE disney the way it is, but... 20 years from now its hard to imagine only seeing 5-6 new rides coming in with some new resorts, and everyone sees everything different so I know some of you will disagree and that's fine because... everyone thinks differently. Just personally, I can't imagine them going 20 years and not having at least construction for a 5th park...

Its just basic economics of supply and demand. Right now there is almost no demand at all for a new park, but like I said above, 15 or 20 years from now... I think there will be a high demand of a new park and to increase profits they will need to build it and meet the demand.

Just my 2 cents (this was a long post, i bet a lot of people stopped reading it, sorry for making it so long)

 

[Lynx04]

I'm surprised some of you don't like to see other things over the tree-tops, I guess I'm the minority then because I love it (as long as its not too much). If I could see like 7 hotels and 11 rides all bunched up from another park looking crowded... yeah that'd bug me, but as some others have said, the peek-a-boo affect is something I LOVE.

My favorite picture from all of my 3423565645634948752430573204 disney pictures is one from the Beach Club where you're looking out over the lagoon BEFORE the BoardWalk, and you can see the Tower of Terror just standing out on its own. You have NO IDEA whats around it (based on your sight that is) and it just looks like an old rickety hotel off in the distance and I loved that. Also, the swan I have heard many times is the tallest structure in disney... or the single-handedly tallest building... something of that sort, so I like being able to see it in the distance, plus it gives me a better sense of direction.

ANYWAYS, more on topic... you have to imagine EVENTUALLY they will build another park, heavy emphasis on the "eventually." I'm 20 years old... I imagine when I'm say 40 years old and taking my family to disney (this thought really excites me) that there will have to be another park.

Don't get me wrong I LOVE disney the way it is, but... 20 years from now its hard to imagine only seeing 5-6 new rides coming in with some new resorts, and everyone sees everything different so I know some of you will disagree and that's fine because... everyone thinks differently. Just personally, I can't imagine them going 20 years and not having at least construction for a 5th park...

Its just basic economics of supply and demand. Right now there is almost no demand at all for a new park, but like I said above, 15 or 20 years from now... I think there will be a high demand of a new park and to increase profits they will need to build it and meet the demand.

Just my 2 cents (this was a long post, i bet a lot of people stopped reading it, sorry for making it so long)

It all depends on demand, and it may never happen. Right now Disney has enough expanding and renovating of existing parks that would equate a new park being built. Every park has some room to expand, MGM and EPCOT not much, but AK does. Old attraction need to be recyceled or updated. All of this will take over a decade to complete and as they expand parks like AK there capacity will increase as well. The potential capacity at AK will probably keep the need for Disney to build another park for a while. Unlike us, Disney is not on the trigger to build another park in Orlando. They want to do everything possible right now to get the most out of the existing parks. Theme parks have so much overhead, it makes more economic sense to increase capacity at existing parks and keep over head low, than open a new park and create a huge overhead. I'll put it this way, there are way more factors playing against another park right now then playing for.


In the case of WDW, they will probably never reach a capacity that would require them to develop 100% of the land that they can develop. At least never in any of our life times.

 

[bgraham34]

With having so many theme parks around the world now, there is no reason to develope more theme parks in Disney World. Many people outside the US dont feel they need to travel here to do all that. Its in there own backyards. Well not everyone.