Posted Jul 20, 2016, 5:22 AM
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Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 3,132
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Quote:
Disneyland President Michael Colglazier also addressed the assembled troops last Thursday morning, as he gave one of his rare Business Updates on the state of the Resort. Once Michael shared slides of his family’s recent vacation to Shanghai Disneyland (seriously), he finally got to the business of the Disneyland Resort, and that business in Anaheim is very good. The entire Parks division has seen operating profit increase by 20% compared to last year, but almost all of that is due to increased overall attendance and soaring profit in Anaheim. Michael was diplomatic but very clear in explaining that the other parks around the world have had either flat or slightly lower attendance for the year, with weak earnings at the other properties.
But the Anaheim property has roared through the 60th Anniversary with record crowds and increased spending by those crowds. Anaheim’s Resort District has added 2,000 new hotel rooms in the last 15 months (Great Wolf Lodge, Courtyard Mariott, Holiday Inn, Hyatt House, Marriott Springhill and others), with additional hotel projects currently under construction, and occupancy at the 22,000 hotel rooms now within the Resort District remains at an all-time high. (It’s hard to find a vacancy at the Grand Californian or Disneyland Hotel this summer on Expedia.) The impact to Disneyland is record numbers of domestic and foreign tourists in 2016 spending big bucks. So, while “peak” days may seem less crowded, those guest days have moved to alternate days and increased the total overall attendance, spending and profit.
Michael tactfully explained that not only has the Anaheim property been carrying the entire Parks division for the past year, but that Chairman Bob Chapek and the company’s Board of Directors have taken particular notice of Anaheim’s stellar financial performance. The result is that additional funds have now been approved by the Board of Directors to be spent in Anaheim. The ticket tax deal that was struck with Anaheim a year ago dictates that $1.5 Billion needs to be spent on Disneyland Resort expansion in the next few years to avoid a tax for the next 45 years. But Michael announced that Burbank will now spend over $2 Billion dollars in Anaheim over the next four fiscal years, and that additional funding above that $2 Billion will be released next fiscal year for several additional projects.
New Lands, New Rides, More Hotel Rooms & Parking
That $2 Billion already approved will go towards Star Wars Land and all the rumored projects readers here already know about; the Pumbaa parking structure with Harbor Blvd. skybridge, the sprawling new luxury hotel and new parking structures on the existing Downtown Disney parking lots, as well as the re-Imagineering of Downtown Disney. The projects Michael wouldn’t talk about in the Opera House last week are already known to most regular readers here, like the Frozen E Ticket and Arendelle village being planned for north of Fantasyland. The plans for DCA now include a total thematic rethink of the northern flanks of Hollywood Land that would take over Monsters Inc., Stage 17, Stage 12, the Sunset Showcase Theater, and beyond the park into some of the adjacent bus loading areas of the East Esplanade.
With all that expansion coming to the two parks, more parking will obviously be needed. Although the Pumbaa parking structure has yet to be officially announced, construction has already begun on that sprawling complex. The first office building at 1515 Manchester Ave has been demolished, and that northern piece of the property will become the new hotel shuttle bus loading area capable of handling dozens of buses at a time, replacing much of the existing loading areas that were built back in 1999. The new bus loading zone will lead to a landscaped plaza that becomes a broad walkway through what is now the Carousel Inn, before it heads over the skybridge across Harbor Blvd. and then winds along the very northern perimeter of the existing East Esplanade loading area.
The parking structure itself will be built in two phases, the first phase going on the existing footprint of the Pumbaa parking lot. The smaller office building between Pumbaa and the new bus loading zone will be demolished later and be part of a second phase of construction on the parking structure, as Disney can’t get the Customs & Immigration Service at 1585 Manchester to end their long-term lease of that building early. The contractor who will build the parking structure has committed to an 18 month construction timetable, so the entire new facility should be open by the spring of 2018.
While that construction will free up a huge amount of acreage for DCA expansion due north of Hollywood Land, it’s the southern flank of Hollywood Land that will see construction first. The plan to remake the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror into a Guardians of the Galaxy ride in 2017 is barreling ahead, and Tower of Terror is now planned to close this September. The project is slated to take until next May to complete, and will require reconstruction of the existing exterior queue as well as heavy modification to the interior queue and ride system itself.
The lack of a DCA parade has freed up the TDA planners to expand their plans for a much bigger Food & Wine Festival next spring, as well as begin working on a holiday themed food festival now planned for this November and December. TDA has struggled for over a decade with concepts designed to pull the huge Thanksgiving and Christmas crowds out of Disneyland and spread them to DCA, but nothing has really worked in the long run. It’s hoped that a new food festival themed to the holidays will at least pull some of the Annual Passholders over to DCA and let the tourists enjoy Disneyland’s top-notch Christmas offerings. At least that’s what TDA hopes will happen.
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