You can say they should have never been shut down, but they were. And not to make them a lounge. They were shut down for other reasons. Then it became a case of they were not being used for anything (other than perhaps storage). So DVC paid (yes, DVC paid, not WDW. The money for refurbishing the lounges, staffing them, and maintaining them, comes from DVC operating funds - which are not part of dues either) to create these lounges.
So the choice really was - a glorified storeroom, or a lounge that the capital and operating costs of did not come from the park budgets.
www.wdwmagic.com
d23.com
