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D-isney C-hanges A-llFirst lets update you on the plans to start spending that big budget on DCA, as a few of the tricky construction timeline issues seem to be falling into place in the last few weeks. As it stands now, the two new entertainment offerings already planned for DCA before the 1.2 Billion was approved look like they should be able to debut as previously scheduled. The first offering, the new Pixar Play Pals parade we broke the news on last March is still on its way to make a Spring, 2008 grand opening. There had been concern that DCA's parade route would be too torn up at the park entrance to be able to stage a major parade in the park during construction.
That problem will be worked around by changing the DCA parade route entirely so that parades begin in the Pacific Wharf area and head west towards their conclusion in Paradise Pier. As the park boundaries of DCA eventually expand into the Timon parking lot, the parade route will expand with it and gain back some length it lost by avoiding the "Sunshine Plaza" area at the park entrance. And the first summer of the new Pixar parade may still use the original parade route, as the construction in DCA's entrance area may not begin until later in 2008.
Remember, the guiding principle of DCA's extreme makeover is to go in and tear apart an area only once, and so the plans and goals and timing for each area must be in their final form before the bulldozers move in. The DCA entrance area had been considered for major changes for many years now, dating back to the early Matt Ouimet era when a frank and fresh approach towards DCA's problems suddenly became fashionable. But the budgets and scope that Matt Ouimet was working with was much smaller than what's available now, and the old plans were classified as a "Placemaking" project of the existing structures and building footprints. Matt had budgets in the tens of millions to work with, where now the budgets are in the hundreds of millions.
The huge new budget now allows for blowing out practically every structure that is there now, and building new 1920's themed buildings and facades instead of just trying to dress up what was already there on the existing footprint. DCA itself would actually expand just a bit to the north in the current plans, with new entrance turnstiles moved out to where the California letters currently stand, before visitors entered a Mission Moderne styled street that would resemble Los Angeles in the roaring 20's.
Photo: David "Darkbeer" Michael
Hooray for Hollywood
Tied in with the project to radically remake the entrance is a plan to rebrand and retheme the current Hollywood Pictures Backlot section directly to the east of the existing Sunshine Plaza. Instead of a fake Hollywood backlot themed to being a fake Hollywood, the area will be redone to actually be Hollywood during the Golden Age of the 1930's. It will purposely be an era just slightly later than the 1920's entrance, and will be fleshed out with real stores and experiences behind what are now just false fronts and empty buildings.
MuppetVision, currently on the north side of the street, is scheduled to be replaced with Mickey's Philharmagic, but with a 1930's era pre-show designed specifically for DCA's new mission statement to play up the Walt Disney era. As they rebuild that 3-D theater, it will provide the opportunity to fill in the empty facades with real stores that can be entered instead of just looked at through shallow display windows.
Photo: David "Darkbeer" Michael
And of course the "isn't this clever" fake skyline painted on the Hyperion Theater warehouse building would go too. Instead, the Hyperion is planned to have a dramatic upgrade that will install a full size façade on its exterior and mercifully enclose the ugly industrial stairwells on the buildings northern flank. You read that right, the most notorious example of cheap DCA architecture will mercifully be addressed, and the big ugly duckling should finally turn into a swan.
Photo: David "Darkbeer" MichaelThe bland cement plaza that currently pretends to be a lobby will be enclosed, and a fully equipped and very legitimately fancy lobby will be built that leads to the newly enclosed escalators and elevators that will take the audience up to their seats.
Photo: FishbulbThe interior of the theater itself will get remade as well, as the two-dimensional mesh coverings that were supposed to be hip and "suggest" a grand old theater will be replaced by intricately detailed walls and a proscenium that will literally look like a fancy 1930's entertainment palace. The plan is to make the Hyperion a self-contained and state-of-the-art theater facility that could possibly host major awards shows or concerts, an idea that you readers may remember from my columns years ago was actually part of DCA's early proposal but was axed from the budget early on.
The new exterior of the Hyperion lobby building is planned to be themed to a 1930's Hollywood street, and new stores and visitor amenities will be included as visitors walk along the street south towards the Tower of Terror. And remember, this snazzy 1930's Hollywood land will be buzzing with streetcars and open-topped limousines that will ferry visitors around the area just like the old-fashioned cars and trolleys on Main Street USA.
Only when you venture into the northern courtyard of the land around Monsters Inc. will the literal 1930's theme give way to a more modern "studio backlot" theme. But even then the Imagineers are trying to figure out how to get that concept to mesh with the clearly 21st century stories in the Philharmagic and Monsters Inc. attractions that will be there. But the dramatic makeover planned for Hollywood, in addition to the new 1930's theme, is going to be much more thorough and in depth than the mild amount of modestly budgeted "Placemaking" that went into that area in preparation for the opening of Monsters Inc. in 2005.
Paradise 2.0But in the meantime, the bulldozers will be moving in this winter in and around the Paradise Pier section of the park (and no, I haven't been invited to direct them where to go). The other new entertainment offering, and it's on a much more massive scale than the new parade, is the Wonderful World Of Color lagoon show that is no longer a secret to anyone. That's still heading towards a 2009 debut, but big work needs to be done to get ready for it.
Photo: FishbulbBasically the entire northern edge of the Paradise Bay lagoon will be torn out and rebuilt to handle thousands of spectators per show. While the rather charmless "Golden State Amphitheater" that sits there now offers a terraced viewing area of sorts, it's not going to be nearly big enough to handle crowds approaching 10,000. That amphitheater was a last minute addition to DCA, and the area was originally supposed to house exhibits for the "California Workplace" concept Eisner and Pressler touted to the press in the late 1990's. By 2000, only three California companies signed up to sponsor exhibits; Mondavi, Boudin and Mission Tortilla, and they were all placed elsewhere in the park.
Mondavi bailed out of its custom built winery facility after the first summer as the family and business were deconstructed. They still officially sponsor the Seasons Of The Vine movie, but the theater is managed by the Foods department instead of the Attractions department and it is rarely ever opened to visitors. The average number of people who view the Mondavi show each day has averaged about 15 this summer, and that requires the viewer to know to go across the patio, track down a Cast Member, and specifically ask to have the movie started for them. There are days when the attraction is simply kept shuttered and closed all day. You have to wonder how much Mondavi is paying for that sponsorship agreement for a movie that is never actually operated for anyone, don't you?
To get ready for the lagoon show, the area from the Paradise Pier entrance bridge to just past where the Golden Zephyr currently stands will be transformed into multi-level terraces designed to look directly at the huge new lagoon show.
Photo: FishbulbOn the other side of the parade route, backing up to this new terraced area, the Route 66 section is planned to be removed entirely. In place of the cheap Mulholland Madness county fair coaster and the McDonalds and pizza parlor a beautiful Victorian beer garden would be built. Nestled next to the beer garden would be a new coaster themed to Ratatouille and a mad race through kitchens and alleys, although there are some Imagineers who don't think that rides theme will do much to increase food sales next door at the beer garden.
Photo: FishbulbJust to the east of that and across from the current amphitheater the Golden Dreams attraction would be torn down. Sorry Whoopi, your time is coming to an end. Only the Palace of Fine Arts dome would remain, and it would be used as the exit for a brand new Little Mermaid ride using an Omnimover ride system like The Haunted Mansion. Those trusty Ominmover ride systems can carry up to 2,300 riders per hour, and seeing how Golden Dreams has been averaging only 75 or 80 visitors per hour this summer, that should be a much better use for that space.
Tony Baxter describes the Paris Little Mermaid ride model on the DVDThis new Little Mermaid family dark ride would help strengthen the presence of San Francisco in a park supposedly about California, especially once they tear down the droopy Golden Gate Bridge out at the entrance. Currently the only real homage to San Francisco in the park is the Golden Dreams dome, a single Churro cart painted like a cable car, and the empty San Fran row houses across the way.
Photo: FishbulbBut those row houses won't be empty for long, and this is where John Lasseter's style really starts to make an immediate impact. In fact, those row houses will likely feature the first proof that DCA has hit the budget jackpot while more and more Imagineers and many Disney fans (even the few who actually like the place now) get excited about the first-rate park DCA will become. The current plans call for those empty San Francisco row houses to become a new Disneyland Resort Preview Center with models and sketches of the new attractions and park themes coming to Anaheim in the next few years. The center will most heavily tout the plans for DCA, especially at first. But it would also be used to showcase the new Disneyland Resort hotels, Downtown Disney expansion, the new Disney Cruise Line ships based out of Long Beach, the new look and attractions planned for Tomorrowland, and any number of the growing list of new projects now headed to Anaheim.
John Lasseter remembers fondly the "Coming Attractions" exhibits that Disneyland used to feature in the Disney Showcase on Main Street USA, and he wants to recreate that for the new DCA projects about to get underway. And he also knows full well that any model or sketch displayed would be the talk of internet message boards all over the world. The 1.2 Billion to fix DCA has already been committed by the board, in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars already ear-marked for Anaheim expansion and investment after the 50th changed the corporate conventional wisdom on Anaheim's earning potential.
Lasseter and the Imagineers assigned to the DCA projects would love to see a Preview Center, if only to prove to everyone that these huge undertaking is really going to happen.
http://www.miceage.com/allutz/al082807a.htm
Sujet: [Disney California Adventure] Placemaking et futur du Parc 
Mer 4 Juil - 21:13
