Anaheim vote gives initial OK to Disneyland expansion plan
SANTA ANA, Calif. — Visitors to Disney’s California parks could one day walk through the snowcovered hamlet of Arendelle from “Frozen” or the bustling, critter-filled metropolis of “Zootopia” under a park expansion plan approved by the Anaheim City Council.
Disney would spend at least $1.9 billion over the next decade to transform its 490-acre campus in Southern California. It would be the biggest expansion of Disney’s Southern California theme parks in decades. Disney would also be required to spend tens of millions of dollars on street improvements, affordable housing and other infrastructure in the city.
The council unanimously approved the project after an eight-hour meeting that began Tuesday evening, the Orange County Register reported. A second council vote for final approval of the plan is required in May.
The plan wouldn’t expand Disney’s footprint in tourism-dependent Anaheim but would help it add rides and entertainment by letting the company relocate parking to a new multistory structure and redevelop the massive lot, as well as make other changes to how it uses its properties.
Disneyland, Disney California Adventure and the Downtown Disney shopping area are surrounded by freeways and residential areas in the city 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles, so the company sees the plan as vital to being able to continue to create sizable new attractions.
A significant share of public testimony to the City Council focused on Disney’s plans to buy a public street near the theme park and turn it into a pedestrian walkway as well as its intention to add a crosswalk on another neighboring street.
Scott Martindale, who lives nearby, said the crosswalk would improve safety.
“No change or project is perfect. But in this case, the ‘gives,’ I believe, outweigh the ‘takes,’ ” he said.
Another neighbor, Cassandra Taylor, said she looks forward to the new rides the expansion will bring. But she’s concerned about Disney’s plans to privatize a city street, adding she first heard of the idea last month in a newspaper article even though she had attended two Disney informational presentations.
“They might have a pedestrian walkway planned now, but once it is theirs, they could just as easily remove it,” Taylor said. “Voters will have no say in its future use.”
Ken Potrock, president of the Disneyland Resort, said at the meeting: “We are ready to bring the next level of immersive entertainment here to Anaheim.”
In the past two decades, Disney investments have included Cars Land, Pixar Pier, Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge and Avengers Campus.
It’s the first time Disney has sought a major change to its California theme parks since the 1990s, when the company obtained approvals to turn Disneyland, its original theme park and built in 1955, into a resort hub. It later built the Disney California Adventure theme park and the Downtown Disney shopping and entertainment area.