Star Wars Land announced for Disney's Hollywood Studios

[DVCOwner]

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Which with modern technology and better building methods.. it should be building faster.. not slower and with 50x the cost.

I am in the construction trade and I can tell you that faster is not always better and with the every changing government regulations, such as American with Disabilities, fire and safety codes and OSHA, some thing take a lot longer now. I am not getting political about this, it is just a fact that some construction takes longer today then when Epcot was constructed.

 

[marni1971]

Read "Building a Better Mouse" by Steve Alcorn and David Green. The title may be sarcastic. It depicts the construction of Epcot Center and will definitely give you pause about the building practices of the day.

Excellent book

 

[P_Radden]

Read "Building a Better Mouse" by Steve Alcorn and David Green. The title may be sarcastic. It depicts the construction of Epcot Center and will definitely give you pause about the building practices of the day.

Excellent book

I just ordered this off of amazon. Do you guys recommend any other books that discuss the construction of Epcot or MGM? The only other one I have is an original hard back copy of Walt Disney's Epcot Center, which I love.

 

[Master Yoda]

I just ordered this off of amazon. Do you guys recommend any other books that discuss the construction of Epcot or MGM? The only other one I have is an original hard back copy of Walt Disney's Epcot Center, which I love.

Project: Future was a good read.

http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Proj...EloT1grlQ7k0DGqRWEaMA2frw_AGVl0ePoaAmHJ8P8HAQ

 

[marni1971]

I just ordered this off of amazon. Do you guys recommend any other books that discuss the construction of Epcot or MGM? The only other one I have is an original hard back copy of Walt Disney's Epcot Center, which I love.

Ron Schneiders biography has some interesting stories about early Imagination.

 

[sedati]

I just ordered this off of amazon. Do you guys recommend any other books that discuss the construction of Epcot or MGM? The only other one I have is an original hard back copy of Walt Disney's Epcot Center, which I love.

Walt Disney's Epcot Center was the first thing I ever bought on Ebay, a great book.

 

[GoofGoof]

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Which with modern technology and better building methods.. it should be building faster.. not slower and with 50x the cost.

You also have more regulations and union requirements. Construction should be faster today, but it's usually not.

 

[Slowjack]

You also have more regulations and union requirements. Construction should be faster today, but it's usually not.

I could be wrong, but I don't think you would have greater union requirements than in the 70s and 80s. I remember the story of how slow the union carpeting crew was on the original build-out of the Contemporary, and how Disney eventually worked a deal where they could hire a non-union crew so long as the union crew would also get paid for every hour the non-union crew worked.

 

[GoofGoof]

I could be wrong, but I don't think you would have greater union requirements than in the 70s and 80s. I remember the story of how slow the union carpeting crew was on the original build-out of the Contemporary, and how Disney eventually worked a deal where they could hire a non-union crew so long as the union crew would also get paid for every hour the non-union crew worked.

I'm not trying to put down unions, but there's a lot more regulation around things like number of people needed for a given task. It's probably done for the safety of workers but I think in 1982 the average worker was probably allowed to do more and had less hoops to jump through.

 

[Goofyernmost]

SWL at DLR has gone vertical with steel beams.

If anyone watched the film of the steel work at SWL in DLR, and paid attention to the time involved to just put one piece of cross bracing in place everyone might get an idea of why it takes a long time to build a theme park attraction, especially an attraction that isn't just an off the shelf design.

 

[doctornick]

This next 5 years leading into the 50th Anniversary might actually be pretty good as far as something large scale and new opening each year:

• 2017 Pandora
• 2018 Toy Story
• 2019 Star Wars
• 2020 and 2021 could be any number of rumored projects.

Reportedly, the new Mickey ride would be 2019 as well...

If they get started on stuff in Epcot this year (perhaps in the summer after Pandora opens so they can divert work crews and money to a new project) and aim for 2020 opening, that would seem nice to continue this along. And there's also the rumored stuff (SGE replacement, Speedway... changes) in Tomorrowland in the works by 2021.

So, I think we finally have WDW being developed more or less as regularly as it should have been. I hope they don't stop with the 50th, especially since DHS and Epcot will likely need ongoing work beyond current plans (and DAK could use a few more attractions to fill things out).

 

[Warren's love Disney]

jumping on the construction themed books, could anybody recommend books that focus on the construction of magic kingdom, all parks included. How this stuff gets built is fascinating.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Does anyone think SWL will have a viewing area and special effects for DHS night time show?

Not with the current set-up. There's no large empty courtyard. The direction of the current FW pad only leaves a few spaces that aren't blocked by the marketplace or being too close to the berm. And if they build up large buildings or mountains as part of the enclosure, then even less viewing.

And, there's no plans AFAIK for projections, unless there is going to be screens that pop up out of the landscape.

This seems to be a real squandering of WDW's 'blessing of size' IMO.

I marked in red the direction of the current FW pad. And in green the possible good viewing spots, which, is pretty optimistic.

 

[danlb_2000]

Not with the current set-up. There's no large empty courtyard. The direction of the current FW pad only leaves a few spaces that aren't blocked by the marketplace or being too close to the berm. And if they build up large buildings or mountains as part of the enclosure, then even less viewing.

And, there's no plans AFAIK for projections, unless there is going to be screens that pop up out of the landscape.

This seems to be a real squandering of WDW's 'blessing of size' IMO.

I marked in red the direction of the current FW pad. And in green the possible good viewing spots, which, is pretty optimistic.

View attachment 189449

When it comes the parks themselves, Disney doesn't seem to be taking advantage of the 'blessing of size'. You have to go back pretty far to find a park expansion that went beyond the initial bounds of the park.

 

[S 2]

Not with the current set-up. There's no large empty courtyard. The direction of the current FW pad only leaves a few spaces that aren't blocked by the marketplace or being too close to the berm. And if they build up large buildings or mountains as part of the enclosure, then even less viewing.

And, there's no plans AFAIK for projections, unless there is going to be screens that pop up out of the landscape.

This seems to be a real squandering of WDW's 'blessing of size' IMO.

I marked in red the direction of the current FW pad. And in green the possible good viewing spots, which, is pretty optimistic.

View attachment 189449

I'm a little confused by this.. Don't the fireworks come from the center of the park's Chinese Theater?

 

[danlb_2000]

I'm a little confused by this.. Don't the fireworks come from the center of the park's Chinese Theater?

There are some fireworks that are launched from the tops of the buildings within the park, but the high aerial ones come from the new launch site on the other side of World Drive.

 

[azox]

I didn't notice it being posted, but Star Wars land in DL is has gone vertical! Will be interesting to see when it happens in DHS.

Here is the link with photos from disney geek:

https://blog.disneygeek.com/2017/02/10/disneyland-star-wars-construction-check-210/

 

[rushtest4echo]

When it comes the parks themselves, Disney doesn't seem to be taking advantage of the 'blessing of size'. You have to go back pretty far to find a park expansion that went beyond the initial bounds of the park.

I never considered the square footage of Hollywood Studios lacking (aside from the current construction- which will in fact add a ton of walkable space to the park). The placement and quality of the attractions is another matter though.

 

[MisterPenguin]

I'm a little confused by this.. Don't the fireworks come from the center of the park's Chinese Theater?

As mentioned, there's a new launch pad (circled in red). And that's why if you're in the Main Stage central hub, the fireworks appear to be going off to the right of the Chinese Theater.

 

[MrHappy]

Sorry for not being clear. Slowing down construction duration has limited benefit to Iger. However, slowing down a project's overall development cycle does benefit Iger.

Don't think in terms of what's best for the company. Instead, think in terms of what's best for Iger. Iger is the one making these decisions, and it's Iger who personally benefits by delaying theme park capex.

It's one of the reasons Iger loves cruise ships. Even though a cruise ship takes years to build, Disney's overwhelming cost is paid upon delivery. In other words, Iger doesn't pay for a cruise ship until the year the company realizes revenue from it. Theme park capex projects aren't like that. Disney pays these costs as they are incurred, not realizing any revenue until the project is complete.

Let's consider a theoretical construction project that's going to cost $1B and take 2 years to build. For simplicity, let's assume these construction costs are linear, or $500M for every 12 months. For simplicity, let's also assume that for every $1B Iger spends at the parks, his personal compensation is reduced by $1M. Remember, Iger's compensation package is organized to penalize Iger for spending company money on theme parks, a direct result of Eisner's wild spending sprees of the 1990s.

Now let's look at how the schedule for this theoretical project might be affected by the structure of Iger's compensation package.

Iger has the option of starting construction now and incurring company costs of $500M in the current and next fiscal year, reducing Iger's compensation by $500K in each year, or Iger can delay construction by 6 months and impact his compensation by only $250K this year, $500K in the second year, and $250K in the third year. Better yet, Iger can tell Disney Imagineering to spend an extra year (or two) making sure the plans are right (giving Iger & co. time to find ways to reduce that $1B budget to $900M) and push off the start of construction by 18 or even 30 months.

Even though senior executives are supposed to be long-term strategic planners, they more often than not are laser focused on this year's bonus. Come next year, they'll figure out ways to focus on that year's bonus.

Sorry if this was covered, I jumped a few pages after I read this terrific insight. My question is would the Capex clock have already begun ticking based on Iger's EPCOT announcement a few months back even though there's a shovel is nowhere close to touching EPCOT soil? But he announced the reno's publicly in order to start "spreading" the costs and thus impacting his comp less dramatically?