I'm not going into specifics of their Earthquake code, nor in I qualified in assessing the building Qualifications of building on Reclaimed land. It's possible that their are additional building standards for building on Reclaimed land, looking at the complications that they are having with Kansai international which is an extreme example.
That makes two of us! However, Leemac on Laughingplace and others have said the quality of the landfill is poor and they have compensated for this since the beginning. Which brings it back to the spending problem, you likely have two clones (PPF and Frozen), two new rides, three restaurants and a hotel with a lower capacity than its predecessors. That list doesn’t scream, half of TDS’ budget to me, which at the time was the most extravagantly budgeted park in Disney history. Building codes don’t seem to be the problem here. Maybe they’ll get squeezed by contractors because of the Olympics, but I don’t know.
If this was an addition to their Fantasyland, I’d be all for it (minus hotel), but it’s this appendage on world’s best theme park.
On the positive it shouldn't make Disney's Management more risk adverse, they aren't spending the money. Tokyo Land Company would be the one to worry about, ie Keisei Railway and Mitsui, Disney doesn't own an portion Tokyo Disneyland except the IP. I'm curious if the rate for use WDI is higher for TDR than in house use by WDW.
This is a point I seem to get into arguments about; that doing something isn’t conservative. When I think about the design of these parks, and how that connects to the business, a reasonable option can be the worst outcome because it doesn’t address the core problem.
Like WDSP, the problem is the park will never be an equal to DLP and will always be a heroin monkey, constantly needing money, competing for limited guest time, internal resources etc. The reasonable plan put forth by Burbank to turn it into a UNI park doubles down on a flawed design and conception of a Disney park. The spaces are clones or reskins of existing facilities, not creating timeless, intergenerational spaces, the hallmark of Disney theme parks. It also fails to establish Marvel and Star Wars on their own terms in the medium of themed entertainment, but that’s another discussion I don’t want to have in public.
Now let’s bring that back to the new TDS port. Obviously, it makes lots of sense to expand the parks on the footprint of the parking lot. You can keep pushing the capacity of these parks without trade offs. This parcel of land was going to be developed, the question centers around which park does it go to. That’s the problem, if you tear down/relocate Toontown, you open up lots of capacity for a much larger FL building on what is being built now; strong thematic fit. But there’s the issue of balancing out the parks and the new port does that with little regard for anything else like theme. So you have a reasonable solution which damages the integrity of TDS with an ugly hotel that will bring the real world wealth gap into the park for no good thematic reason.
