New cable car system at Disney World? Plans raise the possibility

Plans filed with the state have generated speculation that Walt Disney World is planning a cable car system on its property.Rumors have circulated about such a project for months.Reedy Creek Improvement District, the Disney-controlled government agency,...

BUSINESS
15 February 2017 Wednesday 23:26

New cable car system at Disney World? Plans raise the possibility

Plans filed with the state have generated speculation that Walt Disney World is planning a cable car system on its property.

Rumors have circulated about such a project for months.

Reedy Creek Improvement District, the Disney-controlled government agency, submitted plans to the South Florida Water Management District this week for a project associated with “various building, roadway…and parking lot modifications.” Plans show buildings – including one with a V shape – that are elevated 100 feet.

Disney isn’t disclosing more details yet. “At any given time, we have numerous projects in various stages of development across our resort. If a project moves forward, we will share details when it makes sense to do so for our business.”

According to the plans, work will take place in spots including south of Epcot and Disney’s BoardWalk and east of Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Both Epcot and Hollywood Studios are getting overhauls, with a Star Wars land set to open in 2019 at Hollywood Studios. Disney executives have said they plan big changes to Epcot, though they have not revealed what.

Theme park fans who saw the permits on the WDWMagic.com website theorized the work could be for the rumored gondola lift system.

Their idea makes sense to Dennis Speigel, a theme park consultant whose firm recently worked on a project that included a cable car.

“What we think it is is a gondola ride, a cable car,” Speigel said after inspecting the plans. “It makes sense.”

Speigel found the buildings’ locations and elevations particularly interesting along with the V-shaped building.Also, Speigel said, “they’re doing a fill-over the swamp area. That’s where we think they would be putting the free-span poles.”

Speigel’s company, International Theme Park Services, designed a project in Vietnam that includes a cable car ride across Ha Long Bay.

He said a cable car ride is “the way things are going now.”

Patrick Radden, a construction project manager in Lexington, Ky., and a Disney fan, has analyzed the plans along with another frequent contributor to the WDWMagic site.

The two also looked at structures from other Reedy Creek permits and reached the conclusion Disney appears to be planning a cable car or gondola system.

“We started noticing these odd structures being on these permits,” Radden said.“When we overlaid them onto maps we started noticing they connect on straight lines.”

Radden said others on the site had talked about a skyway or gondola system, and “we took that and basically ran with it, put two and two together.”

Reedy Creek District Administrator John Classe said the permit filed this week with the South Florida Water Management District was a joint one between his agency and The Walt Disney Co.

Classe said he had no information on what the buildings depicted on the permit would be.

Disney has not spoken with him about any new transportation system, he said. “I only know when they submit applications to us,” he said.

An engineering company that works on a variety of projects including transportation-related ones, Atkins, worked with Disney on the plans. Locally, Atkins has done work for the Central Florida Expressway Authority.

Duncan Dickson, a former Disney executive, said a cable car system connecting parks or resorts would be cheaper than expanding the monorail system. “Anything you can do to get people off the roads is probably pretty intelligent,” he said.

Disney has also been working on a series of road transportation projects to prepare for more traffic from its expansion.

spedicini@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5240; Twitter @SandraPedicini

“Rivers of Light,” the first nighttime spectacular planned for Disney’s Animal Kingdom, will debut Feb. 17, Walt Disney World announced Thursday morning.

General admission prices are set to increase at Walt Disney World theme parks starting Sunday.

Two sisters have sued Disney Parks and Resorts, alleging they sustained injuries on the Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover.

During an earnings call, Disney revealed that the Avatar Land would open May 27 and Star Wars land will open in 2019.

The Epcot International Festival of the Arts focuses on visual arts, performing arts and culinary arts. Theme park reporter Dewayne Bevil breaks down the different categories.

spedicini@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5240; Twitter @SandraPedicini

Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.