I just returned from CSR and heard that the cabana 9b building and business class rooms are done as of December 2016 and the building is being taken down. Couldn't find out what was going in its place. Do you think family suites are coming? I heard it is not DVC or convention related.
Let me speculate for a moment...
@marni1971 said that this is for expansion. I believe that implies that we're not going to see this just become more parking, especially if the 9b building is coming down. That plus the new ponds make way for significant amount of room to build new structures.
What could these buildings be used for? There are four options:
1) Amenities
2) Timeshares
3) Conventions
4) Additional Hotel Capacity
If those height baloons are indicative of the fully built out buildings we can safely rule out 1 and 3. 1 doesn't make tons of sense even if it was built low. Coronado is already a nicely built out Resort. They could add another pool, but that would be so close to the other pool it would be of little benefit to the users. Any amenities upgrade would simply pull away from existing offerings. They could add a spa, but that would be a strange addition when WDW's deluxes use that as a differentiator and have extensive capacity.
That would be one massive convention center just from a height prospective and would be a serious change in direction. Also you do say it's not convention, so we can rule that out.
That leaves time shares and increased hotel capacity. You say no to time share. I actually am partial to believing you. With Wilderness Lodge not yet finished, other more easily low hanging fruit like a second Beach Club Resort DVC, and monorail resorts with more plots available I don't see Coronado being the first best choice. In order to make it worth it, they'd have to build a tower. Why build it here instead of somewhere like the Contemporary?
That leaves only #4. Increased hotel capacity.
What do we know? We know Rasulo and Staggs (I hope they're having fun in retirement) said that Disney was at a place where they'd start considering adding hotel inventory in the past. We know other operators and Resorts have added thousands of hotel rooms in Orlando since 2012, Disney's last expansion. We also know that it's cheaper to add capacity to existing resorts because the amenities are already there.
If Disney were to add capacity, where would they do it? Why not at an existing popular Resort that is already well tapped into the convention market? Why not add a tower with several hundred rooms to the existing development? Wouldn't that work?
Or they could just be adding DVC...
Edit: While I talked about this being more than just parking, I wouldn't be surprised if the main lot outside of checkin moved into the bottom yellow area. That would significantly increase capacity of the lot, especially if there are room or convention additions.
