Urban myths abound about how Walt Disney picked Anaheim as the home for Disneyland. The most likely determinant: an economic study he commissioned in the early 1950s.
Disney tapped Stanford Research Institute, then part of Stanford University, to find the best spot for an amusement park in Southern California.
Based on projected population growth and climate, the nod went to Anaheim,over Santa Ana, La Mirada and La Palma.
As Walt Disney Co. gears up a massive marketing push for Disneyland’s 50th anniversary this year, the decision to put the park in Anaheim has proved pivotal for the city.
Disney has spurred decades of development in Anaheim, including a second theme park, hotels and a convention center. It’s unlikely Anaheim would have baseball and hockey teams today if it weren’t for Disney.
The ripple effect of Disney’s decision also has spread to Garden Grove, Buena Park and other nearby cities.
To be sure, most of the gains have been related to tourism and sports. But the profile Disney gave Anaheim likely helped in landing other businesses.
“One of my main projects was to increase industry in Anaheim,” said Keith Murdoch, the former Anaheim city manager who helped put the Disneyland acreage together.
At the time, Bridgford Foods Corp., Carl Karcher Enterprises, now CKE Restaurants Inc., The Gas Co. and Ganahl Lumber were among Anaheim’s largest businesses. Now the city also counts Boeing Co., Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. and Targus Inc. as major tenants.
By landing Disneyland, Anaheim officials created an economic engine for the city and Orange County that was on par with aerospace and the budding electronics industry. The move brought tourists, residents, jobs and other business to the onetime agricultural county.
First Decade
In Disneyland’s first decade, the park generated $555 million in economic revenue (equal to $3.5 billion today), according to a report done by Los Angeles-based Economic Research Associates. That figure was 12 times Disney’s original investment.
By the end of Disney’s first decade in Anaheim, 49 million people had visited the Magic Kingdom,6.5 times the number of people who lived in Los Angeles at the time.
The company’s $50 million total investment in its first 10 years (equal to $325 million today) was the largest U.S. private investment in recreation at that time.
Early development that came with Disneyland included a bowling alley, ice rink, miniature golf, a few dozen motels and restaurants and the Melodyland concert venue. By today’s standards, it doesn’t seem like much. But in the mid-1960s, it was enough to extend the time visitors spent in Anaheim.
Today, Disney’s impact is even more dramatic.
Now, roughly 21 million people live within a day’s drive of Anaheim. And more than 43 million visited OC in 2004, spending better than $7 billion while they were here.
No. 2 Park
Disneyland is the No. 2 most popular amusement park in the world by attendance, drawing 13.4 million people last year and second only to Disney World in Florida. Disneyland’s newer Anaheim sibling, Disney’s California Adventure, ranks No. 15, according to industry publication Amusement Business.
“Disney is clearly the No. 1 focus” in OC, said Cynthia King, director of the Center for Entertainment and Tourism at California State University, Fullerton. “There aren’t many other players (in tourism) that create the kind of resort atmosphere they do.”
The annual economic impact has grown to $3.6 billion for other businesses throughout Southern California, according to a study done this year by CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.’s CBRE Consulting and Allan D. Kotkin & Associates. Disney commissioned the study on the eve of the original park’s 50th anniversary.
That figure reflects spending by visitors at hotels, restaurants and other entertainment venues.
The economic impact goes beyond tourism.
The report estimates annual taxes generated for area cities and counties at $225 million.
Anaheim spokesman John Nicoletti said the city’s hotel room taxes alone are expected to reach $64 million for fiscal year 2004-2005.
In 2004, the Disneyland Resort,which includes the two parks, three hotels and Downtown Disney shopping area,gave $9.4 million to community service programs.
“The Disneyland Resort is a critical driver of tourism in Southern California, which benefits the region with jobs and billions in annual economic activity,” said Thomas Jirovsky, senior managing director of CBRE Consulting in the 2005 economic impact report.
Before Disneyland, Anaheim was “just a town on the way to the beach,” former city manager Murdoch said.
The city had one department store, a couple of motels and a handful of restaurants,none of them upscale.
“That was the extent of our tourism industry,” Murdoch said.
In its first decade, Disneyland helped spur the decision to create a visitor bureau and to build the Anaheim Convention Center. At least 30 hotels and a dozen restaurants opened. And its budding tourist district was one lure for the baseball team then known as the California Angels, which moved to the city in 1966.
1990s Redevelopment
In the 1990s, Disney spurred a massive redevelopment that created California Adventure and brought upgrades to roads, freeways and hotels in the area.
Now Anaheim has roughly 40% of OC’s 55,000 hotel and motel rooms, its only professional sports teams and a major sports, concert and entertainment venue in the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim.
And the city is looking to develop what it is dubbing the “Platinum Triangle”,an area near Angel Stadium of Anaheim,into an urban enclave of high-rises, shops and other uses (see story, page 1).
It’s also angling to lure a pro football team, and possibly a basketball team to the Pond.
Disneyland has been a job generator,first for construction and later for park operations and work at other tourist businesses. Burbank-based Walt Disney is the county’s largest private employer with about 20,000 workers.
When Disneyland was built, “They sapped the local labor market,” Murdoch said. “It made it difficult for anyone else trying to develop.”
From 1945 to 1954, 38 factories came into Anaheim, many of them in the nascent electronics industry. That put added pressure on the job market.
Meanwhile, the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway was built through Anaheim to Santa Ana by the mid-1950s, making it easier to get to OC.
Along with demand for jobs, the freeway brought more residents to the area.
By 1961, Anaheim’s population had grown to 113,000 people,triple the number a decade earlier. The city was home to 30,000 jobs.
Homes and businesses blossomed on three sides of Disneyland. Many of the park’s workers lived nearby.
“Population growth was a significant contributing factor to Disneyland’s success, particularly given its reliance on the region market for attendance,” said John Robinett, senior vice president of Economic Research Associates.
Disneyland also spurred Anaheim’s convention business.
Bill Snyder, president of the Anaheim Visitor Bureau from 1973 to 1993, said groups came to Anaheim so attendees could visit Disneyland and use the area’s hotels for special events, as they still do today.
“For the vast majority of the groups, Disney was a great attraction because (conventioneers) frequently brought their spouses and families along,” Snyder said.
Business visitors and overall growth prompted Disney to keep the park open daily year-round starting in the mid-1970s.
As the Convention Center expanded across the street and the number of hotels grew, other attractions proliferated, making the city an easier sell.
By the end of the decade, some called OC one of the fastest-growing regions in the nation.
But rampant growth around Disneyland hadn’t always produced the most flattering results.
The area had grown into a mishmash of cheap motels and other campy businesses that didn’t look much like a Magic Kingdom.
Looked at Other Cities
That led Disney to consider other cities for a second park. But, in the end, the company worked with the city and other government agencies to remake the Disneyland area into the Anaheim Resort District,1,100 acres around the original park.
The plan was approved in 1996 and included: the fifth expansion of the Anaheim Convention Center; Disney’s California Adventure; road and other upgrades; and the development of hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues.
In all, it totaled roughly $5.6 billion,an investment that in 2000 surpassed only the likes of other national projects like the Big Dig in Boston, New York’s Water Tunnel No. 3 and a $5 billion industrial and residential project in Warrenville, Ill.
The second park struggled early on and is a work in progress for Disney. New rides helped California Adventure reach 5.6 million visitors last year, according to Amusement Business. Disney also hopes to spur the park by playing off Disneyland’s anniversary.
Matt Ouimet, president of the Disneyland Resort, said that the company is spending “hundreds of millions on marketing” the event and already has debuted its newest ride,an interactive ride called Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters based on the popular character from the “Toy Story” movies.
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Walt Disney in 1966 Rose Parade: wanted to put park in Burbank |
City Planning, 1950s-Style
Walt Disney wanted to put his amusement park in Burbank. But city officials there turned him down.
His first try at buying land in Anaheim hit a snag when a key property owner didn’t want to sell.
That’s when Earne Moeller, former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce president, heard Disney was searching for the land in the city. Moeller and then-city manager Keith Murdoch worked with Disney to cobble together land for his park.
They found 15 parcels to piece together, but needed the help of the city, the county and the state to make it happen.
Doing so today would be a daunting, if not impossible, task.
Things were different in the 1950s. Anaheim was a farming town of 30,000 people, versus 330,000 now.
The city agreed to annex land outside its borders and to close a street that ran through the middle of the assembled site.
The state agreed to finish Harbor Boulevard’s intersection with the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway,itself still under construction,in time for the park opening.
And the county agreed to widen some two-lane roads: Harbor, Katella Avenue and Ball Road.
Walt Disney Co. paid for upgrades to a water line the Metropolitan Water District had planned to ensure enough water for the park and residents.
City officials were interested in the revenue a Disney park could bring. Even so, no economic impact studies were done. Nor was there a need for an environmental impact report.
“It was pretty much based on what we visualized and what we thought,” Murdoch said. “We were very interested in developing a sound economic base for the city.”
Disney himself only budgeted $10,000 for the project (about $72,000 today).
And even then, there were critics.
One deal fell apart when a property owner threatened to sue.
Another fell apart because a cemetery stood along the main access road to the property. That didn’t sit well with Disney, Murdoch said.
As early as 1953, the Anaheim Bulletin reported some city officials were concerned about parking, traffic and development around the park, which started out with the name Mickey Mouse Park.
But city officials also knew the park was a chance to bring visitors,and money.
In the end, Disneyland was zoned on a variance.
“No zone that fit a Disneyland existed,” Murdoch said.
Permanent zoning later was put in place.
With all the details that had to be ironed out before construction could start, it took a year after the deal with Disney was struck before any announcement was made.
“Can you imagine that happening today?” Murdoch said.
,Sandi Cain
