yookeroo
Well-Known Member
They should put the Adventurers Club there!
J/K. As much as I loved the AC, us locals would hog up the seating all day there. Would end up being awful.
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Former House of Blues building to be demolished
- Thread starter TP2000
- Start date
They should put the Adventurers Club there!
J/K. As much as I loved the AC, us locals would hog up the seating all day there. Would end up being awful.
Stevek
Well-Known Member
Or Denny's
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Not knowing the local market super well... but what about a broadway venue? That's the type of thing people would come specifically to DtD for and not necessarily tack on going into the parks.
The option is there to do a permanent show (more for tourists) or turn-over touring Disney shows and offer a local subscription package.
The option is there to do a permanent show (more for tourists) or turn-over touring Disney shows and offer a local subscription package.
D
Deleted member 107043
Good idea. Looking at Vegas and WDW it would seem the opportunities for dinner theater, touring Broadway shows, semi-permanent headliners, Cirque du Soleil and the like, are endless. One of my favorite dinner shows is Teatro Zinzani. They used to have an outpost in San Francisco, but lost the venue when the city built a new cruise ship terminal, but still maintain a venue in Seattle. Something akin to this could be a good fit for DLR.
https://zinzanni.com/seattle/
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
We have the Hollywood Pantages to see real broadway plays. A cheaply done Disney version wouldn't cut it, unless a real broadway touring company was booked. A large rock venue that caters to the young would be better.
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SSG
Well-Known Member
Zinzani is terrific. I've been 5-6 times and it never disappoints.Good idea. Looking at Vegas and WDW it would seem the opportunities for dinner theater, touring Broadway shows, semi-permanent headliners, Cirque du Soleil and the like, are endless. One of my favorite dinner shows is Teatro Zinzani. They used to have an outpost in San Francisco, but lost the venue when the city built a new cruise ship terminal, but still maintain a venue in Seattle. Something akin to this could be a good fit for DLR.
https://zinzanni.com/seattle/
Darkbeer1
Well-Known Member
Segerstrom Center for the Arts is well known and close by, has hosted many big events, and has an amazing sounding hall.
The City National Grove of Anaheim is next to Angel Stadium and seats 1,700
The Irvine Spectrum has hosted multiple Cirque du Soleil shows.
Anaheim tried a Dinner Show venue recently on Harbor Blvd, and failed, first as Battle of the Dance, then Centro del Mariachi dinner theater
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Dance
Plenty of good show venues in the Southland, and locals don't want to go to DtD.
If you look at the issues House of Blues and DtD had, between parking, late night crowds and dealing with security checks and law enforcement. Disney wants to need less parking for DtD, to have more for the 4th Hotel
The City National Grove of Anaheim is next to Angel Stadium and seats 1,700
The Irvine Spectrum has hosted multiple Cirque du Soleil shows.
Anaheim tried a Dinner Show venue recently on Harbor Blvd, and failed, first as Battle of the Dance, then Centro del Mariachi dinner theater
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Dance
Plenty of good show venues in the Southland, and locals don't want to go to DtD.
If you look at the issues House of Blues and DtD had, between parking, late night crowds and dealing with security checks and law enforcement. Disney wants to need less parking for DtD, to have more for the 4th Hotel
Bacon
Well-Known Member
The search function will always be your friend
I like that you are thinking outside the box here, but SoCal has no shortage of world-class venues to perform Broadway shows. Aside from all the different venues in nearby Los Angeles that a lavish world capital like that has, Orange County as home to over 3 Million people and one of the wealthiest counties in the nation has several venues that host traveling Broadway shows.
The biggest is the Segerstrom Center for The Arts about 15 minutes away from Disneyland in Costa Mesa. Segerstrom Center has a 3,000 seat opera house, plus a 2,000 seat concert hall, and several smaller 500 seat theaters on its campus, in addition to art museums, rehearsal space, a ballet school, education facilities and learning labs, etc.
The traveling Disney shows from Broadway; Lion King, Mary Poppins, Beauty & The Beast, etc. usually perform in the 3,000 seat Hall that is noted for its dramatic modern architecture with angular balconies.
Although the Segerstrom's newer 2,000 seat concert hall next door has also hosted Disney-themed performances by Philharmonics and celebrity musicians.
And on the Segerstrom Center campus, or within a short walk, there are several very elegant fine dining restaurants, plus apres'-theater bars and bistros, etc. Leatherby's Cafe Rouge is just off the lobby of the concert hall and is a popular spot for locals even on nights without a performance scheduled in the hall.
Point being, Orange County already has venues for lavish Broadway shows fully covered. Most mid-sized cities in America would kill to have a Segerstrom Center for themselves, and a few big American cities don't even have that type of offering on a single campus, and/or certainly not as stylish and well planned.
Downtown Disney Anaheim will need to go in a different direction other than "Broadway Show" venue. And the locals wouldn't give up the Segerstrom Center anyway.
Downtown Disney is at a crossroads here. @Darkbeer1 has hinted at some of the backstage drama and lowered expectations the place had to overcome.
I know for a fact from a property management/real estate contact that TDA had originally planned to use the big Lilo lot for valet parking, assuming they would have hundreds of valet parked cars on weekend nights. They are lucky to get a couple dozen valet parked cars, and for their 10 or 20 valet customers per night they instead used an abandoned bus loading area north of ESPN Zone (another planning failure in assuming shuttle buses would drop off tourists just for DTD). And now Darkbeer says they are giving up on valet parking entirely? Yikes.
Back in January, 2001, this was how TDA assumed they would use these purpose-built parking lots for Downtown Disney. And just look at the size of that nine-lane valet parking loop in the middle!
1. Disneyland Hotel Self Parking
2. Downtown Disney Valet Parking (Seriously)
3. Downtown Disney Self Parking
4. Downtown Disney Shuttle Bus Loading Zones (Seriously)
5. Disneyland Hotel Valet Parking
6. Disneyland Hotel Overflow Parking
That ambitious plan didn't work at all. Instead of hundreds of valet parking locals nightly, they only got two dozen. The local hotels had no interest in running shuttle buses there at all. The self parking was popular with locals who just wanted to stroll and check it out.
The rest is history, but you can see here how off-base they were with planning Downtown Disney regarding the demographics it would pull and the demand it would have. The same thing happened at DCA in 2001, but on a bigger scale. And since Downtown Disney was free to enter, they could easily flex their parking lots and abandon concepts entirely like shuttle loading zones and massive valet parking operations.
Every shopping mall in America is trying to figure out a future growth strategy in the late 2010's. Downtown Disney Anaheim has an opportunity here to set itself up for success in the 2020's, but it's going to take much smarter people than the folks who were in TDA and planned all this originally in the late 1990's. I wish them luck. Don't screw it up again.
I know for a fact from a property management/real estate contact that TDA had originally planned to use the big Lilo lot for valet parking, assuming they would have hundreds of valet parked cars on weekend nights. They are lucky to get a couple dozen valet parked cars, and for their 10 or 20 valet customers per night they instead used an abandoned bus loading area north of ESPN Zone (another planning failure in assuming shuttle buses would drop off tourists just for DTD). And now Darkbeer says they are giving up on valet parking entirely? Yikes.
Back in January, 2001, this was how TDA assumed they would use these purpose-built parking lots for Downtown Disney. And just look at the size of that nine-lane valet parking loop in the middle!
1. Disneyland Hotel Self Parking
2. Downtown Disney Valet Parking (Seriously)
3. Downtown Disney Self Parking
4. Downtown Disney Shuttle Bus Loading Zones (Seriously)
5. Disneyland Hotel Valet Parking
6. Disneyland Hotel Overflow Parking
That ambitious plan didn't work at all. Instead of hundreds of valet parking locals nightly, they only got two dozen. The local hotels had no interest in running shuttle buses there at all. The self parking was popular with locals who just wanted to stroll and check it out.
The rest is history, but you can see here how off-base they were with planning Downtown Disney regarding the demographics it would pull and the demand it would have. The same thing happened at DCA in 2001, but on a bigger scale. And since Downtown Disney was free to enter, they could easily flex their parking lots and abandon concepts entirely like shuttle loading zones and massive valet parking operations.
Every shopping mall in America is trying to figure out a future growth strategy in the late 2010's. Downtown Disney Anaheim has an opportunity here to set itself up for success in the 2020's, but it's going to take much smarter people than the folks who were in TDA and planned all this originally in the late 1990's. I wish them luck. Don't screw it up again.
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FerretAfros
Well-Known Member
Maybe I'm reading between the lines too much, but it sounds like you're saying that the Rainforest Café will get relocated to the current HOB site, and that whole area by the existing Rainforest Café and ESPN Zone will get annexed into the 4th hotel site.
This would bring a proven successful restaurant into the heart of DTD, and could presumably encourage a new tenant to the site north of HOB. It would essentially end DTD east of the bridge, but the foot traffic on the west side has always skewed more toward hotel guests.
The whole area north/west of the AMC could then be redeveloped into a better use of space. Those big box buildings have offered relatively little for a pedestrian environment, and the gateway to the DLH (and PPH around the corner) had always been rather awkward with the service road and nice-but-generic landscaping
They could also reevaluate the incredibly oversized DTD taxi loop (what were they thinking when they designed that?!) and the bus parking lot(?) north of the DLH valet lot that only seems to ever get used for part of the finish line set-up for runDisney events, incorporating them into the site for the new hotel somehow. And if they play their cards right, they could also make the Monorail station a part of the new hotel, even if it's not an exclusive feature for hotel guests
EDIT: Thanks @TP2000 for making that nifty map while I was writing this! Seems like we're sort of thinking about the same things here
D
Deleted member 107043
The more time I spend here the better I understand how stark the difference is between the way locals view Disneyland Resort from folks like me who visit from outside the area.
My pleasure.
When Downtown Disney opened in 2001 it was thought of as a "success" because it had people walking through it regularly. But there were several major mistakes and failures on DTD's part. But compared to the complete ghost town and utter failure of DCA at the same time, the problems at Downtown Disney got very little attention.
When you had theme park walkways that were this empty during the opening year, of course everyone was focused on the total failure of that park.
While Downtown Disney had much busier walkways in 2001, the customers who were there and how they were spending their money were not at all what the original executive planners had hoped for.
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D
Deleted member 107043
How do you know this?
SSG
Well-Known Member
So if Disney can’t capture local shoppers and diners, maybe the answer is bite the bullet and invest in making DTD cater to resort guests. Add more Disney specific shops and themed Dining experiences. This might not pay off for several years but it could later when more hotels and possibly a 3rd gate come in.
The parking setup for one, as I mentioned above. They built a 300 space valet lot because that's how many cars they thought would show up for valet to go to failed supper club concepts like Y Arriba Y Arriba (that barely lasted a year) and swanky date nights.
The demographics that did show up in 2001 were totally different than what they planned for in 1999. But at least folks showed up, which is more than DCA could say back in '01.
yookeroo
Well-Known Member
Not really. The locals really would monopolize it. It would end up being awful.
Curious Constance
Well-Known Member
I would be happy if they brought more themed dining to DTD. Me and my family have nothing like that in our whole state, and when we go on vacation we seek unique experiences like this out. We make it a point to go to Rainforest Café anytime we are in any city that has one. We're bummed that the one in Seattle closed. Sure the food isn't great, but it's different and fun. My kids love it, and I'm like a kid myself, so I do too.