Fridays with Jim Korkis: The West Side of Disney Springs
By Dave Shute
Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.
THE WEST SIDE OF DISNEY SPRINGS
By Jim Korkis
Disney Springs is the outdoor shopping, dining and entertainment complex at Walt Disney World. It gained this name in 2015, and today most fans know the area by that name. The complex has always been meant to both keep guests on Walt Disney World property and also to generate revenue from local residents.
It began as the Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village in 1975 and continued to evolve with an expansion in 1997 that included Pleasure Island and the then new West Side area. That area of nightclubs, theaters, themed restaurants and shops added an additional 66 acres to the original complex and was renamed Downtown Disney.
(c) Disney
According to the Imagineers the Downtown Disney name took “its inspiration from Broadway and Hollywood from traditional ‘downtowns’ coast-to-coast where America discovers the best of everything.”
In particular the new West Side offered some new opportunities for outside vendors. Imagineering felt it was a challenge to “integrate the design of the entire area so each venue could express itself and remain consistent in overall theming.”
Imagineering divided the area into “big”, “excitement” and “intimate”. “Big” referred to the huge buildings that ranged in size from 15,000 to 110,000 square feet. “Excitement” was supposedly the midway made up of pedestrian streets and plazas that stretched from one end of the West Side to the other. “Intimate” was the Esplande, a path along the lake that guests could stroll, and also the outside dining offered by Wolfgang Puck Cafe, Bongos Cuban Café and House of Blues.
Ralph Ireland, Wal Disney Imagineering (WDI) West Side assistant development manager of facilities development, stated at the opening, “WDI wanted the buildings to be constructed and arranged so that guests would naturally flow from one building to the next and be drawn to the Central Square, one of the focal points of the West Side.”
That Central Square included entrances to the AMC 24 Theaters, Virgin Megastore, Wolfgang Puck Café and Bongos Cuban Café.
WDI was in charge of the overall design of the West Side and met with the owners of the individual venues to make sure the companies followed Disney standards of design and construction. For example, WDI wanted restaurants that were along the lake to have two stories and outside dining available.
WDI designed the shell of all the West Side buildings so they would fit together and none would command more attention than any other, so each was limited to one icon that would set it apart from the other locations. For instance, Bongos Cuban Café had the 75 foot high pineapple (a traditional symbol of hospitality); Virgin Megastore had a hydraulic stage for outdoor performances and House of Blues had a water tower.
WDI also built the Front Street Connection, a bridge that brought guest underneath the existing bridge that spanned from the AMC Theaters to Pleasure Island. Using the Front Street Connection, guests were able to walk from the West Side to the Marketplace without entering Pleasure Island.
WDI also designed an information tower at the north end of the West Side to feature billboards displaying each venue’s logo and telephones that would connect guests directly to a venue.
West Side offered some different shopping experiences including “Magnetron Magnetz where every few minutes the lights will dim as the store’s magnetic generator is powered up. Guests will feel the energy as 20,000 magnets come to life that play music, ring, beep, light up, change color or glow in the dark” and “Celebrity Eyeworks resembling a mini-movie set featuring designer sunglasses and other eyewear including some replicas of glasses worn by celebrities in recent films.”
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Thanks, Jim! And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!
In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, Off to Never Land: 70 Years of Disney’s Peter Pan and Final Secret Stories of Walt Disney World!
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