Why does it take so long to complete a Disney project

[POLY LOVER]

Or you know it is a restaurant that makes actual money when it opens and not a theme park attraction.

So what you are saying is that a new ride has a zero sum gain? It doesn't generate any revenue?

 

[danlb_2000]

So what you are saying is that a new ride has a zero sum gain? It doesn't generate any revenue?

A ride generates no direct revenue, unlike something like NBA where you have to pay to use it's restaurant, shop and attractions. The ROI calculation is easier on something that generates direct revenue and it's also easier to show your calculation as correct when it opens. The ROI on a ride is a lot trickier.

 

[LAKid53]

Someone alluded to this earlier, but while 90% of a "regular" building is off the shelf standard material, a WDW attraction other than the building itself is probably 90% custom design, engineering, and fabrication. Nobody keeps Slinky Dog roller coasters or Millennium Falcons in stock.

You might surprised what's under that huge tarp in my garage.

 

[LAKid53]

Forgive me if this has been talked about before, but I have a question in regards to Florida vs other state construction pay. Where I live, I have been told that the workers are payed via hourly for a construction project. However, in Florida, they are payed based solely on the project. Thus the construction work never gets completed.

I was only told this and I have no idea if it is true or not. Can anyone confirm or correct me on this? I am genuinely curious.

Wow. I've lived in Florida 51 years. There must be a lot of unfinished construction projects around the state I don't see.

And yet we've managed to build, at least in my town, a 22 story capital, several new state office buildings, a civic center, more student housing thsn we have students, several new malls, hotels, 1-10, completely rebuild downtown, 10 new suburbs, etc. And they all look finished to me. And I've worked in, shopped in, stayed in and driven on a majority of them.

Think someone was pulling your leg on that one.

 

[LAKid53]

Let us also not forget that the Ratatouille ride already exists--In Paris. Disney is not reinventing the wheel, yet it still takes 3 years to build the thing? No, it won't be exactly the same, but it will certainly be very similar and not a grand departure from trails that were blazed four years ago.

I doubt that anyone could make a convincing argument that Disney is still a quick-moving company that can make decisions and move a project to completion with decent speed. On the contrary: They've become very slow. I understand the accounting issues, but such concerns certainly existed back in the building days of Disneyland and Magic Kingdom. Accounting is nice, but right now Disney is sitting on under-utilized real estate, under-utilized IPs, and pent up demand. As long as the new attractions remain unbuilt, they are losing money that they could be making.

If I had enough pent up demand that I could hire a new employee and immediately make money from that employee, I wouldn't delay hiring that employee simply because I didn't feel like ponying up for a desk and computer. Profit follows investment and action. For some reason, delaying the opening of Rat for 1,000 days somehow makes sense to the current Disney corporation. It doesn't to me.

One just can't take plans for something built in one country and assume that everything will seemlessly transfer to another.

 

[LAKid53]

Good lord, people. You've got someone who actually is in the business telling you why some projects take so long. You've got the knowledge of both @marni1971 and @Master Yoda confirming. And still you don't believe what they are telling you - it's all that big, dark Disney conspiracy.....

Sheesh. *shakes head*

 

[LAKid53]

I don't know the budgets, so I can't speak to that with any accuracy. But I'll ask this: A fortune compared to what? Itself? Universal? There aren't many peers to compare them too and the projects do tend to be rather unique. For this specific project, sure you have the ride in Paris to compare with, but that was built 3-4 years ago on another continent with different workers, laws and materials.

I manage road projects for a living, and you'd be amazed at the different prices we see in bidding the same exact work.

^^This

 

[Master Yoda]

One just can't take plans for something built in one country and assume that everything will seemlessly transfer to another.

You can't really even do it from county to county in the same state even with a state wide, universal building code.

 

[Goofyernmost]

One just can't take plans for something built in one country and assume that everything will seemlessly transfer to another.

Just for starters, think about the plans being in metric, which unless I'm mistaken we don't use here all that much. All that has to be converted as well and made to fit in our inch by inch world.

 

[lazyboy97o]

You can't really even do it from county to county in the same state even with a state wide, universal building code.

It could even be difficult in different locations within the same county.

 

[Phonedave]

It could even be difficult in different locations within the same county.

Come to New Jersey where "Home Rule" is the watch word. Every. single. municipality. has its own rules, inspectors, police department, permitting department, and building codes. Of course so do the Counties and the State as well.

You want to open this intersection ? Well that's the intersection of a County Road with a Municipal Road. Better get both sets of permits, both sets of inspectors, and of course Local Cops and County Cops to do traffic control.

Don't even get me started on streets that were recently paved and now have an embargo / restriction / protection on them.

And if you ever need to get the railroads involved in any permitting because you are in their right-of=way, well just hand that off to the person who will be replacing you when you retire, because thats when those permits finally come in.

-dave

 

[lazyboy97o]

Come to New Jersey where "Home Rule" is the watch word. Every. single. municipality. has its own rules, inspectors, police department, permitting department, and building codes. Of course so do the Counties and the State as well.

You want to open this intersection ? Well that's the intersection of a County Road with a Municipal Road. Better get both sets of permits, both sets of inspectors, and of course Local Cops and County Cops to do traffic control.

Don't even get me started on streets that were recently paved and now have an embargo / restriction / protection on them.

And if you ever need to get the railroads involved in any permitting because you are in their right-of=way, well just hand that off to the person who will be replacing you when you retire, because thats when those permits finally come in.

-dave

I understand different municipalities. I was thinking more in relation to Florida where you do have large sections of counties that are unincorporated. So same jurisdiction with the same building officials with the same codes. The example Irma had me looking at recently is wind speed loads. Orange County defines its wind speed areas and if we looked at the map, we could probably find an area where a building across the street needs a more robust structure.

Multiple jurisdictions is another reason Disney cannot just quickly copy the existing drawings for Ratatouille or TRON Light Cycle Power Run. Reedy Creek Improvement District is often mischaracterized as having state-level authority and that is not the case. Projects at Walt Disney World need to comply with both the EPCOT Building Code and Florida Building Code. Ideally, EPCOT would always be more restrictive and thus applicable, but that is not always the case.

 

[Master Yoda]

I understand different municipalities. I was thinking more in relation to Florida where you do have large sections of counties that are unincorporated. So same jurisdiction with the same building officials with the same codes. The example Irma had me looking at recently is wind speed loads. Orange County defines its wind speed areas and if we looked at the map, we could probably find an area where a building across the street needs a more robust structure.

Multiple jurisdictions is another reason Disney cannot just quickly copy the existing drawings for Ratatouille or TRON Light Cycle Power Run. Reedy Creek Improvement District is often mischaracterized as having state-level authority and that is not the case. Projects at Walt Disney World need to comply with both the EPCOT Building Code and Florida Building Code. Ideally, EPCOT would always be more restrictive and thus applicable, but that is not always the case.

I have actually run into that exact thing.

The wind speed itself is not too big of an issue as the difference in say 130-140 is not that big. What can get you is exposure as this varies based on the proximity to a large open area of water or land. I have had houses that were across the street from each other where one was exposure B and the other was D.

 

[POLY LOVER]

Less than 3 years to build and occupy the World Trade Center? Are we really saying the rat ride could not be up and running in less that three years? The space shuttle took 4, come on man

Construction of the World Trade Center's North Tower began in August 1968, and the South Tower in 1969. Extensive use of prefabricated components helped to speed up the construction process. The first tenants moved into the North Tower in December 1970 and into the South Tower in January 1972. Four other low-level buildings were constructed as part of the World Trade Center in the 1970s, and the seventh building, 7 World Trade Center, was constructed in the mid-1980s.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

The Space Shuttle Endeavour (OV-105) contract was given to Rockwell International on July 31, 1987. It was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on May 7, 1991. That's nearly four years, but Rockwell had a lot of spare parts left over from building the other shuttles.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Less than 3 years to build and occupy the World Trade Center? Are we really saying the rat ride could not be up and running in less that three years? The space shuttle took 4, come on man

Construction of the World Trade Center's North Tower began in August 1968, and the South Tower in 1969. Extensive use of prefabricated components helped to speed up the construction process. The first tenants moved into the North Tower in December 1970 and into the South Tower in January 1972. Four other low-level buildings were constructed as part of the World Trade Center in the 1970s, and the seventh building, 7 World Trade Center, was constructed in the mid-1980s.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

The Space Shuttle Endeavour (OV-105) contract was given to Rockwell International on July 31, 1987. It was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on May 7, 1991. That's nearly four years, but Rockwell had a lot of spare parts left over from building the other shuttles.

Do you know what core and shell is?

 

[hanwill]

I think if they wanted it open in a hurry they could get it done... I live in Atlanta and they rebuilt part of an elevated interstate from start to finish in 6 weeks.... if they wanted it done that way, they could

 

[Master Yoda]

Less than 3 years to build and occupy the World Trade Center? Are we really saying the rat ride could not be up and running in less that three years? The space shuttle took 4, come on man

Construction of the World Trade Center's North Tower began in August 1968, and the South Tower in 1969. Extensive use of prefabricated components helped to speed up the construction process. The first tenants moved into the North Tower in December 1970 and into the South Tower in January 1972. Four other low-level buildings were constructed as part of the World Trade Center in the 1970s, and the seventh building, 7 World Trade Center, was constructed in the mid-1980s.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

The Space Shuttle Endeavour (OV-105) contract was given to Rockwell International on July 31, 1987. It was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on May 7, 1991. That's nearly four years, but Rockwell had a lot of spare parts left over from building the other shuttles.

Yes, they could. What you can't seem to get through your head is they don't need to so they are not going to.

Disney use to build 3000 square foot houses in a week that would normally take 6-9 months. Why? Because even though the cost was astronomically higher than building it the regular way, it financially benefited them to do so.

 

[Phonedave]

I understand different municipalities. I was thinking more in relation to Florida where you do have large sections of counties that are unincorporated. So same jurisdiction with the same building officials with the same codes. The example Irma had me looking at recently is wind speed loads. Orange County defines its wind speed areas and if we looked at the map, we could probably find an area where a building across the street needs a more robust structure.

Multiple jurisdictions is another reason Disney cannot just quickly copy the existing drawings for Ratatouille or TRON Light Cycle Power Run. Reedy Creek Improvement District is often mischaracterized as having state-level authority and that is not the case. Projects at Walt Disney World need to comply with both the EPCOT Building Code and Florida Building Code. Ideally, EPCOT would always be more restrictive and thus applicable, but that is not always the case.

I have actually run into that exact thing.

The wind speed itself is not too big of an issue as the difference in say 130-140 is not that big. What can get you is exposure as this varies based on the proximity to a large open area of water or land. I have had houses that were across the street from each other where one was exposure B and the other was D.

That's the thing when it comes to "zones" - you have to draw the borders somewhere. Then you get the people who are just inside or outside of a zone and they want to be on the other side of the line. "come on, it's only 50 feet, cant you just extend it?" Nope, because your neighbor is now only 50ft out of a zone, and now THEY want to be included. That line has to be somwhere.

It happens to me (in a good way) My town is made up of three sections an one section happens to have more "panache" associated with it for some reason. It is a more desireable section as far as housing is concerend, and some people are willing to pay extra for an address with that zip code. I live in that section - it ends 2 houses down the street from me. If we ever decide to sell, our house will sell easier than the one that is 3 houses away.



-dave

 

[POLY LOVER]

Yes, they could. What you can't seem to get through your head is they don't need to so they are not going to.

Disney use to build 3000 square foot houses in a week that would normally take 6-9 months. Why? Because even though the cost was astronomically higher than building it the regular way, it financially benefited them to do so.

Some people were making excuses and justifying the long build time. So if the bottom line is they 'don't want to' then that's a whole different story than they can't.
My point is the excuses were lame at best for why it will take three years. As an investor I want it on line ASAP but if Disney looks at the numbers and says hey the crowds are still coming why rush, we'll then ok. I get it but I don't accept BS.

 

[lazyboy97o]

That's the thing when it comes to "zones" - you have to draw the borders somewhere. Then you get the people who are just inside or outside of a zone and they want to be on the other side of the line. "come on, it's only 50 feet, cant you just extend it?" Nope, because your neighbor is now only 50ft out of a zone, and now THEY want to be included. That line has to be somwhere.

It happens to me (in a good way) My town is made up of three sections an one section happens to have more "panache" associated with it for some reason. It is a more desireable section as far as housing is concerend, and some people are willing to pay extra for an address with that zip code. I live in that section - it ends 2 houses down the street from me. If we ever decide to sell, our house will sell easier than the one that is 3 houses away.



-dave

My favorite is when you straddle the line, where this part of a project has to follow these rules and the rest has to follow those rules. I would love to sit in on a planning meeting for Carowinds.