Disney Breaks Ground on Shanghai Theme Park

CTV News: Dipping golden shovels into a trench of sand, Walt Disney Co. executives and their Shanghai partners broke ground Friday for a long-sought theme park that will feature the world's biggest "Magic Kingdom" castle, and ambitions to match.

The 24.5 billion yuan (US$3.7 billion) park in Shanghai's southeastern suburbs is meant to serve as a brand-building cornerstone, luring legions of newly affluent Chinese with world-class facilities that will be "authentically Disney, but distinctly Chinese," said Disney CEO Bob Iger.

"Today is the culmination of many years of hard work, dedication and partnership," Iger said. "This is a defining moment in our company's history."

After over a decade of haggling, Shanghai's communist leaders seemed equally enthusiastic about the project, which will serve as an anchor for an "international tourism resort zone" with hotels and other large-scale entertainment venues. It will be Disney's fourth theme park outside the U.S., after Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

"Disney is a classic urban entertainment brand," said the city's mayor, Han Zheng. "This project will help improve Shanghai's profile as a world famous tourism destination."

The project is a new showcase for this city of 22 million, whose aspirations as a tourism destination were fortified by the 2010 World Expo. It drew a record 72 million visitors during its six-month run, almost all of them Chinese tourists.

Initial plans call for the Shanghai park, at 91 hectares, to be even smaller than the 125 hectare one in Hong Kong, which is now undergoing expansion by about a quarter. But the surrounding resort area in Shanghai, at 390 hectares will be more than twice the size of the Disney resort in Hong Kong, making comparisons of size between the two venues difficult, said Tom Staggs, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, calling it "apples and oranges."

"Any park that we build is designed to grow over time," Staggs said, citing Walt Disney's line that his parks were "never finished." "It's clear there is plenty of room for growth here," Iger said.

The Shanghai park will have several advantages going for it, including the general lack of historic attractions in the region, which is home to over 300 million people all looking for ways to spend their growing incomes and leisure time. Details of the park's design are still being worked out, but plans call for it to feature Disney's biggest castle, an "attraction unto itself," a spacious green area, a lake and plenty of space for anticipated huge crowds, Iger said.

Read Entire Article

Construction to Begin Friday on Shanghai Disney

Bloomberg: Walt Disney Co. and its partner in a proposed theme park in Shanghai scheduled an April 8 groundbreaking for the project, according to people with knowledge of the plans.

Disney scheduled an event, with government-owned partner Shanghai Shendi Group Co., in an e-mail (dated 4/1) without elaborating. Construction begins that day, said the people, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

The start of construction marks a milestone in a five-year process involving negotiations with city and central government officials. Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger and Parks & Resorts Chairman Thomas Staggs will attend, said one of the people. The park’s size, investment commitments and final approval from Beijing’s central government will be announced as well, the people said.

Iger said at the shareholder meeting on March 23 that Disney, the world’s largest theme-park operator, was close to receiving final approval for its first resort on mainland China, the world’s most-populous nation. A public-comment period on the plans ends on April 6.

The Magic Kingdom will open in “about five years,” Staggs said at an investor meeting on Feb. 17. The first phase calls for an investment of 24.5 billion yuan ($3.7 billion), Han Zheng, Shanghai’s mayor, said in March.

Shanghai has designated a 7-square-kilometer (1,730 acres) tourist zone that will include the Disney park. The first phase will also include hotels, car parks, a lake and commuter stations, according to a blueprint posted on the Shanghai city website last month.

Shanghai also plans to spend 4 billion yuan on a 9.2- kilometer (5.7-mile) subway line for the complex in the city’s Pudong area. Construction will begin in September and the line is scheduled to open by July 2015, according to a Jan. 18 government statement. The city government started building infrastructure for the project last year, Jiang Shujie, deputy director of the city’s construction and transport commission, said on Jan. 7.

Read Entire Article