ANAHEIM — Taking a look into tomorrowland, Walt Disney Co. said Friday it hopes to build a new $1-billion theme park in Southern California in the next decade and reinvigorate 35-year-old Disneyland with dozens of new attractions.
The proposed new park will pit Anaheim and Long Beach against each other in a high-stakes game to become the Southland's premier tourist stop. But Disney officials warned that without government assistance to solve traffic problems, a new park would remain a fantasy.
The improvements at Disneyland, the nation's second most popular amusement park after Walt Disney World in Florida, will begin immediately and be phased in over the next 10 years. Company officials have described the costly expansion and remodeling as the largest in the park's 35-year history.
"This is the '90s--the decade we reinvent the Disney experience not just in California, but worldwide," said Michael D. Eisner, Disney's chairman and chief executive, at a press conference Friday.
Eisner said the company's 10-year plan calls for the addition at the Magic Kingdom of a slew of rides based on hit movies--including "The Little Mermaid," the "Indiana Jones" series, and the upcoming "Dick Tracy," giving Disneyland a glitzier, Hollywood flavor.
He also detailed plans to add two new theme areas--Mickey's Starland and Hollywoodland, a major new area of Disneyland that will be a fantasy re-creation of Hollywood Boulevard. The Tomorrowland section of the park also will be completely redone.
Disney has been considering construction of a second amusement park in Southern California for at least four years. Eisner said Disney wants to build the new park in Anaheim near Disneyland or in Long Beach. But the project is contingent on government cooperation to resolve traffic and parking problems.
"The problems are enormous with the infrastructure--in terms of traffic systems, exit roads, parking, the needed amount of land," Eisner said. "Without the interest of citizens, the city council and the mayor (of either city), it will never happen."
In an interview after the press conference, Eisner said there would have to be some kind of governmental financial support "in things like infrastructure." He noted that in France and Florida the company has been able to win concessions on issues ranging from zoning to widening roads.
"We don't build highways," Eisner said. "Unless we have a partnership," the project won't be built.