Disney announces major Downtown Disney expansion

Disney Parks Blog

After five years of fits and starts, Disney has announced an ambitious, multi-year plan to redevelop not just the old Pleasure Island, but the whole Downtown Disney complex.

The sprawling complex will be known as Disney Springs and will double the number of dining and entertainment venues from 75 to 150. A little editorializing here: What's wrong with calling the whole shebang Downtown Disney? Why mess with a good thing?

Disney Parks Blog

Like the current Downtown Disney, the new development will include distinct neighborhoods. Here's how Disney describes them:

• The Town Center, which offers a sophisticated mix of shopping and dining along with a promenade where guests can relax, refresh and reconnect.
• A colorful and thriving commercial district called The Landing with inspired dining and beautiful waterfront views.
• The family-friendly Marketplace that will continue to delight guests of all ages by combining new experiences, such as an over-the-water pedestrian causeway, along with classic Disney favorites, including an expanded World of Disney store.
• A West Side that provides an exuberant atmosphere with lively entertainment, along with a series of new elevated spaces that provide both shade and an overlook to the activity below.

Construction is set to begin next month, and the expansion will open in phases through 2016.

Details of the plan were leaked by WDW News Today a few weeks ago. A few of the details WDW News Today gleaned from the leaked artist renderings:

• There will be parking! Anyone who has tried to park at the Marketplace side of Downtown Disney can attest to the madness that is trying to park there. In the new Disney Springs, there will be a large, multi-level parking garage. 
• There will be walking bridges from Saratoga Springs to the Marketplace and from the Marketplace to roughly where the Portobello restaurant is now.
• A single, larger bus loop to serve the entire development, rather than bus stops at the Marketplace and at the West Side, as there are now. Disney didn't announce any restaurant or shops slated for the new development, but there's already lots of speculation going on over at the Disney Food Blog. Some of the highlights: A Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar, Shake Shack and The Edison. We'd line up for any one of those.

Why so much excitement? Because this announcement has been so very long in coming. Pleasure Island has been closed for five long years now. Disney briefly had plans to turn the area into Hyperion Wharf, but that plan was put on hold almost two years ago. Disney World fans have been clamoring for an update ever since. 

The Disney Parks Blog even acknowledged the long delays today: "We’ve spent a good deal of time thinking through just what we want this area to be, and how to bring it to life to make it a place unlike any other. And we have even scrapped a few preliminary plans that we felt didn’t measure up to our aspirations for this place."