Celebration Focuses on Future Without Disney Magic, Rules
CELEBRATION (Orlando Sentinel) - In this town envisioned 30 years ago by Walt Disney, the company that bears his name has decided it's time to go. Disney's master-planned community, with its spacious front porches, pedestrian-friendly layout and music piped through speakers in the trees, was marketed as the real Tomorrowland. Now Disney's development arm, having recently sold the Celebration golf course, is negotiating to sell the downtown core to an undisclosed buyer. The 105,000 square feet of retail space, 105 apartments and 94,000 square feet of office space is on the market because like other developers, The Celebration Co. has no long-term ambition to run a city. Disney always had plans to unload the center city, and the company will still be involved in developing the outer ring of commercial area there. Still, the move marks a symbolic juncture in the history of the ultimate company town. Ten years into the grand experiment, a basic question remains about the place immortalized in thousands of articles and dozens of books and documentaries. Did Celebration deserve all the attention or, despite the hype, is it just another successful development? Yes and yes, said Catherine Collins, who detailed her family's impressions during a two-year stay there in Celebration U.S.A., a book co-written with her husband and former New York Times reporter Douglas Frantz. "Somehow, perhaps by virtue of its very name, Disney made it acceptable to place million-dollar homes next to apartment buildings. It made old-fashioned sidewalks de rigueur," Collins wrote. "However, it takes more than sidewalks to solve today's problems and those who went to Celebration expecting the world to change -- for their marriages to be perfect and their children to get straight As -- were sadly disappointed." Many residents hope the change in ownership will give them more of a voice in what happens in Town Center. Instead of a Fortune 500 company deciding what upscale businesses set up shop, residents figure they will be the ones to show how practical stores are needed and will be embraced. Disney's decision to sever ties to the downtown is the latest chapter in a place with a Truman Show atmosphere that has endured everything from gentle teasing to outright mocking. Most recently, the town was skewered nationally in a satirical send-up in Playboy magazine. Residents, though, are also self-deprecating -- just as they are hopeful. After all, they reason, if a developer is selling its assets, it means the development has arrived. That is also the message from the Celebration Co. "Disney is very much known for its ideas. This one was to inspire community-development standards, and we've certainly been successful at that," company President Perry J. Reader said. "The real result was the people getting involved, and this is the natural transition."
)
