DisneylandForward

[MistaDee]

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.

This is fascinating ^ thank you for the insights. Really wish Disney had gone in this direction instead of opting to view its labor force as increasingly commodified inputs.

I just don't get how any of this is supposed to connect. Punch a hole in Critter Country, punch a hole in New Orleans Square, and have bridges going over the road? I don't see how that could work. First, I would think the entirety of Disneyland Dr. needs to be made underground, passing underneath the park, to avoid any long stretches of nothingness. Second, you would need to hide the show buildings and backstage facilities behind New Orleans Square. It all seem excessively complicated.

There are tons of creative ways Disney could go to address this bridge issue. They could enlose the whole thing and put screens in telling some kind of story, clad it all in rockwork and have it be a "story of water," maybe even put in moving walkways and add some show scenes like primeval whirl or something on the "tunnel through time." I look forward to seeing how they address the challenge. If anything it presents an opportunity to be creative like they were with the Haunted Mansion's stretching room.

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).

View attachment 782028

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).

View attachment 782031

Another good reference would be this: in theory, Fantasy Springs and Tokyo Disneyland's New Fantasyland would fit into the space. There would be 6 attractions, 1 theater, 4 restaurants, 1 exclusive popcorn shop, 1 extremely thematic meet & greet, along with various other services such as food stalls, bathrooms, shops, etc.View attachment 782045View attachment 782046

It's time to play Tetris! It's just an idea, but something like that.View attachment 782063

LOVE playing Disneyland Resort tetris. It's a very significant area, I hope they can fit two distinct lands or one big one with two sub-lands within that space.

I agree, I think the DL expansion is likely the last priority, my guess is priority #1 is going to be the Manchester parking area, Harbor bridge, and security… priority #2 is going to be Hotels, DVC, shopping, and standalone upcharge attractions at Toy Story lot… Priority #3 will be DCA expansion into Simba… and then priority #4 will be DL expansions. I also suspect we’ll see 2 or 3 separate rounds of expansion at Toy Story, Simba, and the DL Hotel parking areas, it wouldn’t make sense to do one massive expansion and use all that space all at once, I think they’ll spread it out over a couple decades so there’s always something new to market.

I don't follow the logic here. It makes sense to do the Eastern Gateway and Manchester parking area first to free up the bus area for DCA, but why would they prioritize the Toy Story lot? Very disconnected from their existing resort bubble and GardenWalk has already been struggling mightily. The whole point of DisneylandForward is to expand the areas they can build theme parks on to increase the capacity of their parks and thus the amount of guests they can monetize each day.

I see the DCA expansion into Simba in particular as a high priority that could even be developed in conjunction with the Eastern Gateway to help balance the capacity and demand between DCA and DL. Toy Story lot would be the very last priority, worth doing only if the expansions of DCA/DL have been so successful they're overflowing with enough demand for their hotels and downtown disney to justify a satellite expansion like Toy Story.

As others have said I also think this pad is worth retaining for a more ambitious future project, whether that's a true 3rd gate or some sort of mixed-use zone more similar to what will come for the Simba/DL expansion pads than what is envisioned in the concept art. I think what they showed was purposefully limited so they don't get the community too concerned about over-development.

 

[October82]

This is my take.

Disney spent a lot of effort to tighten their security bubble several years back and to include DTD into it. When they first proposed the Eastern Gateway they wanted to expand that into the bubble as well. The point being that Disney does not want you to leave their bubble. They want to keep guests on property as long as possible to spend your money with them and not anyone else.

That said, putting a third gate at Toy Story requires you to leave the bubble and their property temporarily (if you park-hopped mid-day), and since there is no indication of them purchasing GardenWalk, you pretty much would have to either walk or take a bus on Anaheim streets to get from one park to the other since without a direct route from DL/DCA to Toy Story, Monorails and Peoplemovers are essentially out.

It just makes more sense to either make the property west of Disneyland Dr. either a third park or current park expansion so they can keep guests within their property/security bubble.

I expect 'park hopping' and whether people stay/leave the bubble are small considerations in Disney's thinking. It's an operational headache to screen people multiple times and you'll certainly going to do what you can to incentivize people to stay in the bubble/be screened in places that favor reasonable operations and/or your bottomline, but it's not going to determine how you spend $2+ billion to add major capacity to the parks.

Park hopping is also a consequence of DCA not being a significant enough draw. It's not something that's allowed at TDR, for example, because both parks draw similar (and huge) attendance numbers.

 

[October82]

There are tons of creative ways Disney could go to address this bridge issue. They could enlose the whole thing and put screens in telling some kind of story, clad it all in rockwork and have it be a "story of water," maybe even put in moving walkways and add some show scenes like primeval whirl or something on the "tunnel through time." I look forward to seeing how they address the challenge. If anything it presents an opportunity to be creative like they were with the Haunted Mansion's stretching room.

It'll almost certainly be rock work. TDS Mysterious Island has a similar on-stage bridge.

 

[MistaDee]

It'll almost certainly be rock work. TDS Mysterious Island has a similar on-stage bridge.

Far too early to be speaking of anything as a certainty. The distance traversed will be significantly greater in this instance compared to the TDS bridge

Lots of good case studies for how well disney can disguise things at DisneySea tho

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I don't follow the logic here. It makes sense to do the Eastern Gateway and Manchester parking area first to free up the bus area for DCA, but why would they prioritize the Toy Story lot?

DVC is instant money and hotels are consistant money, one of the major advantages of increasing attendance is selling more hotel rooms, with all the existing Disney hotels and DVC constantly sold out I think hotels and DVC will be one of the top priorities.

Selling an extra ticket to DCA makes the company an extra $150, if they can also sell that person a hotel room it makes them $650, if they can also sell them a DVC it makes them $20,150.

Adding a million day guests to DCA would make $150 million a year, building a thousand room hotel and charging $500 a night would make Disney $175 million a year. I think both are worthy of being top priorities.

 

[CastAStone]

If sales don’t pick up at the Villas at the Disneyland Hotel, they won’t need a new DVC to sell out there for many, many, many years.

 

[Disney Vault]

If sales don’t pick up at the Villas at the Disneyland Hotel, they won’t need a new DVC to sell out there for many, many, many years.

I like the sound of that

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

If sales don’t pick up at the Villas at the Disneyland Hotel, they won’t need a new DVC to sell out there for many, many, many years.

Pretty sure Riviera isn’t sold out either but that hasn’t prevented them from building more DVC at the Polynesian. They don’t have to sell out to make money, just sell enough to cover construction costs and then any future sales are profit, and they can rent them as hotel rooms in the meantime.

 

[mickEblu]

This is my take.

Disney spent a lot of effort to tighten their security bubble several years back and to include DTD into it. When they first proposed the Eastern Gateway they wanted to expand that into the bubble as well. The point being that Disney does not want you to leave their bubble. They want to keep guests on property as long as possible to spend your money with them and not anyone else.

That said, putting a third gate at Toy Story requires you to leave the bubble and their property temporarily (if you park-hopped mid-day), and since there is no indication of them purchasing GardenWalk, you pretty much would have to either walk or take a bus on Anaheim streets to get from one park to the other since without a direct route from DL/DCA to Toy Story, Monorails and Peoplemovers are essentially out.

It just makes more sense to either make the property west of Disneyland Dr. either a third park or current park expansion so they can keep guests within their property/security bubble.

Would they really just let the purchase of the Garden Walk kill any chance of a third gate? Just make them an offer they can’t refuse. And wouldn’t it behoove the city to facilitate Disneys purchase of the Garden Walk?

 

[Disney Irish]

Would they really just let the purchase of the Garden Walk kill any chance of a third gate? Just make them an offer they can’t refuse. And wouldn’t it behoove the city to facilitate Disneys purchase of the Garden Walk?

I don't think its just Garden Walk. Remember the whole issue with the EGW originally? The EGW bubble bypassed all the Harbor businesses and it caused an uproar. Imagine trying to do the same thing but this time with trying to create a whole bubble around not only the EGW, but also GW and this new 3rd gate and any path between with whatever "bubble" they would need to build. It just doesn't make sense to try and do that again but on a much larger scale, the uproar would be much larger as it would affect more businesses.

And if completely isolated, as I mentioned before, they would have to build any infrastructure, security, etc., needed to make the 3rd gate self sufficient. I don't know what the future holds, but if you're going to do that you might as well just make a 3rd gate in another city nearby with a larger plot of land that included hotels and such.

 

[mickEblu]

I don't think its just Garden Walk. Remember the whole issue with the EGW originally? The EGW bubble bypassed all the Harbor businesses and it caused an uproar. Imagine trying to do the same thing but this time with trying to create a whole bubble around not only the EGW, but also GW and this new 3rd gate and any path between with whatever "bubble" they would need to build. It just doesn't make sense to try and do that again but on a much larger scale, the uproar would be much larger as it would affect more businesses.

And if completely isolated, as I mentioned before, they would have to build any infrastructure, security, etc., needed to make the 3rd gate self sufficient. I don't know what the future holds, but if you're going to do that you might as well just make a 3rd gate in another city nearby with a larger plot of land that included hotels and such.

Well the businesses should get over it and understand more people in the area can only benefit them. It’s not feasible to have guests walk a few blocks down Harbor Blvd to get to the Toy Story lot. Whether it’s a third gate or a Disney Springs. With the eastern gateway bridge there was a feasible work around to appease the businesses.

 

[MistaDee]

DVC is instant money and hotels are consistant money, one of the major advantages of increasing attendance is selling more hotel rooms, with all the existing Disney hotels and DVC constantly sold out I think hotels and DVC will be one of the top priorities.

Selling an extra ticket to DCA makes the company an extra $150, if they can also sell that person a hotel room it makes them $650, if they can also sell them a DVC it makes them $20,150.

Adding a million day guests to DCA would make $150 million a year, building a thousand room hotel and charging $500 a night would make Disney $175 million a year. I think both are worthy of being top priorities.

Yeah this is 100% not how big corporations look at how they deploy capital lol. Attendance drives everything and building new capacity with new attractions attracts the most valuable kind of visitor: out of town tourists. If you start building hotels, DVC and retail only spaces you end up as Euro Disney 1.0: a financial disaster.

Even considering that the toy story lot is completely remote and would present all sorts of headaches for Disney to deal, it's not going to be driving demand in the right demographics. As others have pointed out, DVC isn't even sold out where they have it, it's an ancillary business at best for the segment.

 

[Disney Irish]

Well the businesses should get over it and understand more people in the area can only benefit them. It’s not feasible to have guests walk a few blocks down Harbor Blvd to get to the Toy Story lot. Whether it’s a third gate or a Disney Springs.

I don't think they care too much what some Disney Fans want, they care about their business.

And if that was the case then Disney and the City Council should have just moved forward with the EGW project as planned years ago. But that didn't happen.

If I was Disney and looking to build a real 3rd gate, I would be looking for a larger plot of land in nearby cities. Like when all that land went on sale in Tustin. Or see if an old golf course like that huge David Baker course and rec complex in Fountain Valley is willing to be sold again, that thing is almost as large if not larger than all of DLR.

 

[mickEblu]

I don't think they care too much what some Disney Fans want, they care about their business.

And if that was the case then Disney and the City Council should have just moved forward with the EGW project as planned years ago. But that didn't happen.

If I was Disney and looking to build a real 3rd gate, I would be looking for a larger plot of land in nearby cities. Like when all that land went on sale in Tustin. Or see if an old golf course like that huge David Baker course and rec complex in Fountain Valley is willing to be sold again, that thing is almost as large if not larger than all of DLR.

Who’s they in this case? Disney? How does a third gate not help their business? They didn’t move forward because Chapek was a moron.

 

[Disney Irish]

Yeah this is 100% not how big corporations look at how they deploy capital lol. Attendance drives everything and building new capacity with new attractions attracts the most valuable kind of visitor: out of town tourists. If you start building hotels, DVC and retail only spaces you end up as Euro Disney 1.0: a financial disaster.

Even considering that the toy story lot is completely remote and would present all sorts of headaches for Disney to deal, it's not going to be driving demand in the right demographics. As others have pointed out, DVC isn't even sold out where they have it, it's an ancillary business at best for the segment.

I think its clear Disney will add more DVC at DLR at some point. Whether that be a whole hotel or another tower remains to be seen. But if they will use TS Lot as a hotel and retail shopping location, and it seems like better than 50% of that happening now, it would make sense to add any new DVC there.

 

[Disney Irish]

Who’s they in this case? Disney? How does a third gate not help their business? They didn’t move forward because Chapek was a moron.

The Harbor businesses is who I'm talking about in this case, they don't care that some Disney Fans want a 3rd gate in TS lot. They would 100% care about the foot traffic that would be lost and rerouted away if a 3rd gate would create a new bubble that bypassed them. Again it would be the EGW all over again, but much larger. And they wouldn't just "get over it".

 

[mickEblu]

The Harbor businesses is who I'm talking about in this case, they don't care that some Disney Fans want a 3rd gate in TS lot. They would 100% care about the foot traffic that would be lost and rerouted away if a 3rd gate would create a new bubble that bypassed them. Again it would be the EGW all over again, but much larger.

If Disney was hell bent on a third gate, I don’t think they or the city would let this stop them.

 

[DisneyAJ]

I don't think its just Garden Walk. Remember the whole issue with the EGW originally? The EGW bubble bypassed all the Harbor businesses and it caused an uproar. Imagine trying to do the same thing but this time with trying to create a whole bubble around not only the EGW, but also GW and this new 3rd gate and any path between with whatever "bubble" they would need to build. It just doesn't make sense to try and do that again but on a much larger scale, the uproar would be much larger as it would affect more businesses.

And if completely isolated, as I mentioned before, they would have to build any infrastructure, security, etc., needed to make the 3rd gate self sufficient. I don't know what the future holds, but if you're going to do that you might as well just make a 3rd gate in another city nearby with a larger plot of land that included hotels and such.

If anything I’d think a purchase of Garden Walk could be a good thing for the surrounding businesses and Disney just needs to speak to that. Garden Walk is struggling annd Disney purchasing it, adding another hotel to it and turning it into DTD East would bring more people to the area, which would include the surrounding businesses. And with Disney owning that land, it would sit all those businesses on Harbor right in the middle of the “Disney bubble”, instead of excluding them which the were previously worried about with the EGW.

 

[Disney Irish]

If Disney was hell bent on a third gate, I don’t think they or the city would let this stop them.

I don't think its as easy as you think it is in this case. Because as I mentioned, if that was really the sentiment the original EGW wouldn't have been cancelled and needed to be redone. Anaheim could have just pushed it through as it was all but rubber stamped by that point, but they didn't. So I don't think you realize how much public outcry can sway projects.

 

[mickEblu]

If anything I’d think a purchase of Garden Walk could be a good thing for the surrounding businesses and Disney just needs to speak to that. Garden Walk is struggling annd Disney purchasing it, adding another hotel to it and turning it into DTD East would bring more people to the area, which would include the surrounding businesses. And with Disney owning that land, it would sit all those businesses on Harbor right in the middle of the “Disney bubble”, instead of excluding them which the were previously worried about with the EGW.

Exactly. They would be doing more business. Not less. Most people that walk up and down Harbor Blvd are staying at the hotels I’d imagine a good percentage will still do that to avoid waiting for the mode of transpo to get down to the Toy Story lot. Walking would probably be more convenient for most of those guests on Harbor anyway unless you are staying right by Toy Story or right by the Eastern Gateway. The rest would be offset by the higher volume of guests in the area because of the third gate.