GF DVC Site Plan?

[optjay]

Found this today. Not sure if its been mentioned. GOD I hope this GF DVC is not true!!!

WESH.com
updated 1 hour 47 minutes ago 2011-03-22T23:45:11
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LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. --

Walt Disney World may be about to embark on another construction project.

Documents filed with the South Florida Water Management District in early March show plans for a major add-on at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort. The resort is Disney's priciest on property, in a bracket all its own.

The permit application shows the proposed addition of a large building to the south of the existing resort buildings, wedged to the north of the wedding pavilion.

The plans call for demolishing the resort's existing tennis court, adding a parking lot and what appears to be an entrance for the building all its own.

Disney also plans to change the shoreline of the Seven Seas Lagoon, the man-made body of water on which the resort sits, to accommodate the new building, according to filed plans from Walt Disney Imagineering. It appears the shoreline change would allow for more property with a view of the water.

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.The proposal sent Disney fans speculating if the add-on would be a new timeshare property for the company's Disney Vacation Club arm.

Disney did not give any specifics about the project.

“At any given time, we have numerous projects in various stages of development across our resort. If a project comes to fruition, we will share details when it makes sense to do so for our business," Walt Disney World spokesman Bryan Malenus told WESH 2 News.

If the new project is a timeshare, it would be the latest Disney resort to have both hotel rooms and a timeshare property.

In May 2009, Disney added on hundreds of timeshare properties to the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Some were converted hotel rooms, but Disney also constructed Kidani Village, a separate building next to the main Animal Kingdom Lodge.

In August 2009, Disney debuted Bay Lake Tower, a separate building of timeshare properties next to the Contemporary Resort, which also sits on the Seven Seas Lagoon.

A timeshare addition at the Grand Floridian would mean timeshare property at two of Disney's closest hotels to the Magic Kingdom, its most-visited park and the most-visited theme park in the world by some estimates. Both resorts sit on a resort monorail line, along with the Polynesian Resort.

Disney Vacation Club has more than 475,000 members from all over the world.

The Grand Floridian opened in 1988, and is modeled after the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, Calif.

 

[juniorthomas]

Quite uneventful. Appears to be a new or modified emergency driveway. It even has a gate across it.

Seemed as if a rumble was about to begin.

 

[Tom]

Seemed as if a rumble was about to begin.

Because someone said ePermitting? I'm confused.

 

[juniorthomas]

Because someone said ePermitting? I'm confused.

I read the following as being from a chagrined poster and presumed a brawl was pending:

"Well, OP likely got the link to my images from one of my posts on another board as I originally put these up elsewhere (disboards, dvcnews, mouseowners) on 3/17 when I discovered them on the South Florida Water Management District site."

Fortunately, no such brawl was had.

 

[DVCrockett]

I read the following as being from a chagrined poster and presumed a brawl was pending:

"Well, OP likely got the link to my images from one of my posts on another board as I originally put these up elsewhere (disboards, dvcnews, mouseowners) on 3/17 when I discovered them on the South Florida Water Management District site."

Fortunately, no such brawl was had.

Ha, ha, ha - Nah, I don't roll like that!
I saw the post and was just answering the question and wanted to provide some context and the backup documentation for the images. I also wanted to pre-empt any potential speculation that I may have somehow fabricated the images.

I stumbled upon the plans on the 17th browsing recent posts on Flickr. The original link I posted is the page I found. After seeing the plan, I immediately came to WDWMagic to see the real scoop on this. Since nothing had been posted, I PMed a respected member here and he said I hit a "gold mine."

So I started a new thread with the info I had. I'm no insider. I'm mostly a lurker. But I love WDW and am a happy DVC owner.

If I did something wrong in starting the thread, please let me know. I meant no harm and had no ill intent. In fact, I'm glad DVCrockett finally got props for finding the plans.

I'll go back to lurking now...

It's all good Bork Bork. I had no problem with you (or anybody else for that matter) linking to the images.

As there are multitudes of Disney related boards on the intenet, one would find it difficult to be able to keep up with all of them, all of the time. So, I consider your post a service to the members here as you were providing relevant information that they may not have picked up on from one of the other sites.

I myself have been nothing but a lurker here from time to time and came over to see if anyone had posted similar details to what I had posted elsewhere when I found your thread. In fact, I finally decided to register and my first post was the additional info I put in this thread.

To my way of thinking, you did exactly what I would expect of a vigilant site member; you informed the membership of some intel you came across. I consider all of these Disney sites to be essentially an information sharing network - if you see something elsewhere and not here, or vice versa, you propagate it in the hope that someone, somewhere has additional pieces of information, or a different perspective, that helps further our understanding of what exactly The Mouse is, or isn't, doing!

 

[wannabeBelle]

Great post Crockett and thank you for the information as well as to Bork for passing the good intel along. As you said it is near impossible to keep up with the sheer amount of info out there so every one pitching in certainly does make it easier!!! Great job all!!! Marie

 

[juniorthomas]

Ha, ha, ha - Nah, I don't roll like that!
I saw the post and was just answering the question and wanted to provide some context and the backup documentation for the images. I also wanted to pre-empt any potential speculation that I may have somehow fabricated the images.



It's all good Bork Bork. I had no problem with you (or anybody else for that matter) linking to the images.

As there are multitudes of Disney related boards on the intenet, one would find it difficult to be able to keep up with all of them, all of the time. So, I consider your post a service to the members here as you were providing relevant information that they may not have picked up on from one of the other sites.

I myself have been nothing but a lurker here from time to time and came over to see if anyone had posted similar details to what I had posted elsewhere when I found your thread. In fact, I finally decided to register and my first post was the additional info I put in this thread.

To my way of thinking, you did exactly what I would expect of a vigilant site member; you informed the membership of some intel you came across. I consider all of these Disney sites to be essentially an information sharing network - if you see something elsewhere and not here, or vice versa, you propagate it in the hope that someone, somewhere has additional pieces of information, or a different perspective, that helps further our understanding of what exactly The Mouse is, or isn't, doing!

Just in case, I'm decked out in neutral gang colors.

 

[LolzMagic]

Sounds nice! Not a fan of DVC personally, but seems like a great construction project for my favorite hotel.

My only concern is the modification of the shoreline. The wing just jutting out into the water seems odd. It seems like it would block the view of the main hotel, wouldn't it? Hopefully it won't end up as another Bay Lake Tower. :zipit:

I whipped up a quick rendering of something I thought could also work. Nothing fancy, but it would look like another building of the GF with a larger entrance. The shoreline would remain mostly the same with slight addition, just so most of the beach is retained. I also added an "infinity" pool which could look nice if it overlooked the MK castle. The tennis courts are now on the opposite side of the health club to make room for a parking lot and retention pond with fountains beside the main drive.

I'm a wannabe architect. :lol:

 

[_Scar]

^ that's really good!

And thank God you put a parking lot there..... I hate crossing the street just to get near the hotel....

 

[lazyboy97o]

Do Disney's Vacation Club owners want to be physically separated from the existing resort at which they are staying? Why not build closer to the original hotel and make the addition look like it belongs, instead of looking like a later addition?

 

[Tom]

Do Disney's Vacation Club owners want to be physically separated from the existing resort at which they are staying? Why not build closer to the original hotel and make the addition look like it belongs, instead of looking like a later addition?

THIS DVC owner does not necessarily feel the need to be separated from the rest of the guests. I enjoy DVC for the rooms sizes/types, overall cost of us to visit once a year, and amenities.

There are probably many others who think the opposite and want to be in secluded buildings in secluded locations.

I think they did a decent job with WL Villas, as it's a pretty short walk between the buildings, and the bus stop is central. Kidani might as well be in its own zip code (and the far end of it's guest wing should be in yet another).

This one will be a hefty walk back up to the main building, monorail and buses.

 

[DVCOwner]

I see a lot of times on this site people asking why is Disney is wanting to build at DVC at the GF and does WDW really need more DVC. DVC has just declared more BLT points to be open for DVC members. So far DVC has sold 4,661,545 points at BLT. This is 81 percent of the total points and almost 83 percent of what they plan to sell (they always hold some in reserve). If you estimate that they sold for about $105 per point average; the total sales so far will be over $489 million in inventory sold in just 2 years. With sales of that level at one resort all I can say is watch out GF and Poly, here comes DVC.

 

[Pioneer Hall]

I see a lot of times on this site people asking why is Disney is wanting to build at DVC at the GF and does WDW really need more DVC. DVC has just declared more BLT points to be open for DVC members. So far DVC has sold 4,661,545 points at BLT. This is 81 percent of the total points and almost 83 percent of what they plan to sell (they always hold some in reserve). If you estimate that they sold for about $105 per point average; the total sales so far will be over $489 million in inventory sold in just 2 years. With sales of that level at one resort all I can say is watch out GF and Poly, here comes DVC.

And can you blame them for wanting to take advantage of that sort of monetary intake...especially when the cost of running and maintaining those resorts is going to be in the hands of the owners for a very long time? This is why it really is illogical for any deluxe resort in the future to not have a DVC component in some way. I also don't really understand why people see a problem in that either since I feel that if Disney can push construction costs on someone else then it is a win for other area. However, to each their own when it comes to their interpretation of this subject...I wouldn't want to start the common back and forth again on this topic :lol:

While I don't think we will see one for quite some time, expect the next deluxe Disney resort to be similar to Aulani. The resort will have it's fair share of DVC rooms, but also a number of standard hotel accomodations.

 

[Computer Magic]

I also don't really understand why people see a problem in that either since I feel that if Disney can push construction costs on someone else then it is a win for other area. However, to each their own when it comes to their interpretation of this subject...I wouldn't want to start the common back and forth again on this topic :lol:

WHich is why I'm glad you decided not go bring the subject up :lookaroun

 

[DVCOwner]

Just something that came up last night when doing my Federal Tax return. Every DVC member pays property taxes and I understand that part of this goes to Reedy Creek Development District. So in addition to helping pay cost at each resort that DVC is a part of; the DVC members also help pay the overall cost of roads, fire departments, water and sewage, etc. reducing the overall cost of this to Disney.

 

[Pioneer Hall]

Just something that came up last night when doing my Federal Tax return. Every DVC member pays property taxes and I understand that part of this goes to Reedy Creek Development District. So in addition to helping pay cost at each resort that DVC is a part of; the DVC members also help pay the overall cost of roads, fire departments, water and sewage, etc. reducing the overall cost of this to Disney.

Well you technically own your piece of property at the resort, so paying taxes would be your responsibility because it is an ownership.

 

[bgraham34]

Yes it is a very small percentage of your dues going to your taxes.

 

[tecowdw]

Well you technically own your piece of property at the resort, so paying taxes would be your responsibility because it is an ownership.

And I love the two square inches of property I own at both AKL and VWL!

 

[MUTZIE77]

THIS DVC owner does not necessarily feel the need to be separated from the rest of the guests. I enjoy DVC for the rooms sizes/types, overall cost of us to visit once a year, and amenities.

There are probably many others who think the opposite and want to be in secluded buildings in secluded locations.

I think they did a decent job with WL Villas, as it's a pretty short walk between the buildings, and the bus stop is central. Kidani might as well be in its own zip code (and the far end of it's guest wing should be in yet another).

This one will be a hefty walk back up to the main building, monorail and buses.

I stayed in that zip code in October and have no desire to stay that far away again.

 

[Tom]

I stayed in that zip code in October and have no desire to stay that far away again.

Yup - if you forget something in your room, you pretty much need to write it off for the day. It's very easy to miss park opening just because you had to trek back to the other end of Kidani for something, thus missing a bus and waiting another 20 minutes.