A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: The Original Concepts for Celebration

By Dave Shute

Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians and author of Jim’s Gems in The easy Guide, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.

THE ORIGINAL PROPOSAL FOR CELEBRATION

By Jim Korkis

The first tenants of Celebration, Florida took up residence in June 1996. However, years earlier Disney had to share its plans for the area south of U.S. Highway 192.

Celebration

In May 1991, Disney presented its initial proposal for Celebration to the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council for review.

Space for 20,000 residents and 15,000 employees would include 8,000 “moderately upscale” homes of all sizes and values that would be built in four themed villages between 1993 and 2015. Three of the villages would wrap around championship golf courses.

All homes would include a fiber-optic computer network that would allow homeowners to select a movie without going to a video store. Shoppers would be able to call up a recipe and get a printout of ingredients, including their location in the grocery store. The system would connect directly with the hospital so that residents could talk directly to a doctor and have things like their blood pressure monitored.

The plans included:

• Celebration Center: Two million square foot international shopping district with famous name retailers from many nations and was projected to attract ten million visitors a year. It would be designed by architect Helmut Jahn of Chicago with the first million square feet scheduled for an early 1995 opening.
• Enterprise Park: A 240,000 square foot office center designed by Italian architect Aldo Rossi. The first phase was a planned a three million square foot office park.
• Residential Community: Four villages with a variety of architectural styles. It would include 8,000 units in a pedestrian-oriented setting, twenty miles of walk and bikeways, a unique video library with a fiber-optic link to homes plus an electronically indexed grocery store.
• The Disney Institute: “A new kind of Disney learning resort to entertain, educate and revitalize guests with movies, gourmet cooking and lectures including an Entertainment Arts Academy, performing arts center and fitness spa, master-planned by AIA Gold Medal architect Charles Moore”. CEO Michael Eisner had been promoting the concept since 1984 which he described as the “cultural heart and soul of the community”.
• Medical and Health Center: Wellness services and 150 bed medical facility.
• Environmental Center: Adjoining expansive wilderness area, this unique center will teach residents and guests about the heritage of Florida wildlife and forest lands.
• Three Championship Golf Courses: Winding through Celebration villages, courses include a Signature Hole course where designers’ kiosks will provide video on each hole’s design and tips for playing it.
• Schools/Civic Areas: Schools are being planned to cater to the needs of residents , with innovative techniques and guest-teacher plan in structures which might be designed by world famous architects whose talents will be applied for the first time toward classroom design. Other civic amenities were planned.
• The Workplace: Visitors will be able to enjoy the creative ingenuity of industrial “wizards” from around the world designing and making everything from tennis balls to compact discs in facilities created to inform and entertain. Designed to promote the free enterprise system and industrial wizardry, tourists would pay to watch a product’s creation.
• Multimodal Station: A transportation facility to respond to the needs of the region and able to accommodate all forms of rail and other ground transit systems.

According to the proposal, upon completion of the Regional Impact Study review process, the property would be de-annexed from the Reedy Creek Improvement District and fall under the jurisdiction of Osceola County. Even after the de-annexation, Disney retained ownership of some assets like the downtown area and the golf course, but they were both later sold.

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Thanks, Jim. Celebration turned out to be something quite different than this proposal, and something unique–in a lot of ways–in America.

Come back next Friday for even more from Jim Korkis!

In the meantime, check out his books, including Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, and The Vault of Walt: Volume 4, and his contributions to The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit, all published by Theme Park Press.

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