maxairmike
Well-Known Member
The square bounded by Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Gerald Ford, and Monterey is where this looks to be located.
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
News Disney to develop residential communities with new 'Storyliving by Disney' business
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
The square bounded by Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Gerald Ford, and Monterey is where this looks to be located.
World_Showcase_Lover007
Well-Known Member
Will the neighborhood have a Target with one of those Disney stores inside?
This approach would also hold consistent with a CEO whose previous claim to fame was selling cheap crap with brand names he had access to on them.
Fixt...
DisneyCane
Well-Known Member
As a stock holder (via various mutual funds), this type of endeavor is concerning to me. It seems to be outside the core competency of Disney and companies that stray from their core competency sometimes end up with major disasters on their hands.
Some arm chair QBs already are already predicting the sky is falling but I'd like to see how this plays out. TWDC is thinking long term in storytelling communities and Rancho Mirage CA is just the first, that's a guarantee. I'm also a long term stockholder and I'm pleased with company long term performance. It is so refreshing when my money works harder than I do.
WondersOfLife
Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
If it worked for Disney, Disney would still own Celebration. Companies don’t get abandon projects that are successful.
It’s perfectly fine saying that Celebration is doing fine today. But saying it was successful under the Disney company is just poor research. Because otherwise, Disney would still be associated with the grand community today.
Let’s see how long it takes until disney drops sponsorship for this NEW communities.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Disney IS still associated with Celebration. They still own The Celebration Company. A new development, Island Village, is being built right now.
Heppenheimer
Well-Known Member
"Legendary Disney service". Ironic choice of the words, since a legend is something from the past that we only retain embellished folk memories of. Yup, that sounds about right for the current state of "Disney service".This would seem to be targeted to an upper-middle class demographic who will call the home their primary residence. I don't think similar restrictions would fly for them, but I guess time will tell on how this all pans out. Personally, I don't think I could justify buying a $15m home while I can't even choose a shrub for the front yard... it's not a problem since I couldn't afford it anyway.
On a separate note, I do have to wonder if Disney will truly be in this for the long haul in terms of the ongoing operation of the club. One of the selling points of the community is the "legendary Disney service" but I'm really not convinced they're going to have CMs on the company payroll working there for decades to come.
Legendary Disney service is a slippery slope since a number of fine dining and quick service options, merchandise, entertainment etc at WDW are managed and staffed by third party companies.This would seem to be targeted to an upper-middle class demographic who will call the home their primary residence. I don't think similar restrictions would fly for them, but I guess time will tell on how this all pans out. Personally, I don't think I could justify buying a $15m home while I can't even choose a shrub for the front yard... it's not a problem since I couldn't afford it anyway.
On a separate note, I do have to wonder if Disney will truly be in this for the long haul in terms of the ongoing operation of the club. One of the selling points of the community is the "legendary Disney service" but I'm really not convinced they're going to have CMs on the company payroll working there for decades to come.
FerretAfros
Well-Known Member
They make that very clear in the official video, where multiple times they call it a "Disney-branded" community where people can immerse themselves in the "Disney brand."
It's possible that Disney was involved in the highest-level conceptual design (development location, having a lagoon) and may be involved in the design of some of the individual amenities (clubhouse, beachfront, possibly the shopping area), but they're not involved in the master planning (road layout, location of different types/sizes of homes, etc.) or the design of the homes themselves. I would even wager that they're not designing the overwhelming majority of the common spaces (pathways, play areas, greenspaces, etc.) throughout the development, instead leaving those to the developers.
And that's probably a good thing. WDI has a terrible tendency to make costs balloon out of control, in a way that would be nearly impossible to recuperate when selling residential homes, a product that is notoriously fickle. Leaving the experts to do the real legwork on this project is a smart move, creating something that buyers actually want at a price that they may (or may not) be able to afford. Disney's involvement is really only at the most superficial level: creating some amenities, training staff (whatever that means), and licensing their name.
That's what makes this whole thing so perplexing to me. The development won't be designed by Disney, and won't include the innovation and attention to detail that made Disney's built-environments famous around the world. So what's left? Some signage promoting the latest characters and clubhouse employees telling me to "have a magical day"? Is that surface-level connection really enough to get people to pay the Disney premium, especially when this is something they'll have to deal with on a daily basis, rather than for a short period while on vacation? This whole project seems to indulge Disney's worst habits in recent years, with redeeming qualities for the company's reputation and legacy as a whole.
As @raven24 so eloquently said in the thread in the DL forum: It’s very obvious that the brand will be everywhere, but the soul of the company will be absent.
rkleinlein
Well-Known Member
l watched the youtube video and looked at the website. What a bunch of gibberish: corporate gobbledygook and silly buzzwords and jargon that don’t actually explain or describe anything. It’s self congratulatory, out of touch, corporate culture at its worst. It reminds me of Mark Zuckerberg talking about the rebranding of Facebook to Meta.
castlecake2.0
Well-Known Member
The plan the whole time was for Disney to divest its interest in the town. Disney never “owned” the town, the residential and commercial area was separated from the RCID from the beginning. The main reason they built the town was because they realized they would never use that property long term for resort amenities and Osceola county was getting annoyed about all the undeveloped land. Rather than sell it all off the idea was to build a town that was still surrounded by RCID lands. Osceola gets tax revenue, Disney gets rid of land they’ll never use while still controlling the border blocking any major competition moving in.
people need to stop the narrative that celebration “failed”, it did exactly what TWDC wanted it to do. It was never meant to be EPCOT and it was never meant to be “owned” by Disney in perpetuity. One can argue that it didn’t live up to certain things, but as for TWDC they got/have exactly what they wanted from it.
1995 HOPA Housing or Older Persons Act advises if 80% of community is 55+ age and up , then 20% of community may live there that is under age 55 from my understanding. It also depends on if the community goes along with that.If somebody wanted to gift me a home in a 55 and over community sponsored/owned/managed/whatever by Disney, I'd move in without embarrassment.
At 48.
Californian Elitist
Well-Known Member
Many Disney fans are surface level fans themselves. They don’t know the history of the parks, let alone care about it. They’re not invested, nor concerned about the history of the company in general. Some probably can tell you a little bit about the history of the company, but even if they could, they likely won’t have a deep connection and understanding of said history. All they care about is getting their next Disney Parks high, whether it’s at WDW or the DLR. That rush of dopamine they get when they walk down Main Street is enough to keep them coming back, no matter what. I started coming across fans like these when I was a CM and I was deeply disturbed, not only by their behavior, but by their rhetoric and the way they spoke about Disney and their love of the brand. It was very obvious to me that their obsession had reached unhealthy levels. I could make the argument that we’re all obsessed with Disney/Disney Parks in some way, but there are definitely levels to it. This is my opinion, but anyone who would happily pay for a Disney-branded living community to “live the magic” and immerse themselves in “Disney storytelling” with hundreds of other Disney fanatics is at the highest level of obsession. When it takes over one’s life, things should strongly be re-evaluated. This living community and the future ones are designed for these types of fans, specifically the ones with lots of money. They’ll be ecstatic to hear “have a magical day” when they’re out and about in Cotino and other future communities.
I found a perfect example of such a fan on Instagram. They put a laughing emoji at the end, but I have no doubt there was some truth to their feelings:
I'm going to have to bet that this person you are quoting (and disparaging) is less obsessed with Disney than most on this board (and say they aren't obsessed
).
Last edited:
Californian Elitist
Well-Known Member
Notice what they want to agree to moving into a Disney-branded living community.
Surface-level, which is my point. Regarding your obsession comment, I highly doubt it.
You sure it just wasn't a joke made in passing? That they didn't just make that comment, move on with their day and not give a community by Disney another thought? People do it all the time on the internet.
If they ever build this, turns out to be nice, I win hundreds of millions, maybe you'll see us there.
We also had living our sunset years on a cruise-ship on our list, but that's dropped to the bottom...