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What is the backstory for Disney Springs?

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Walt Disney Imagineering Executive Creative Director Theron Skees is out with the first video giving guests a greater insight into the story behind Disney Springs. Disney Springs will unite the existing Downtown Disney area under one-project backstory with multiple themed locations. The Landing is the first of those areas and it will open in 2015.

I love the use of pre-viz to help you get a feel for the architecture of the finished project.

Downtown Disney has been a part of Walt Disney World for 40 years (even earlier if you count the preview center that is now the Amateur Athletics Association building). It looks like this new project will respect that history and root the project firmly in the environment and history of Central Florida as well.

What do you think of the backstory as explained by Skees?

Stay tuned for an photo and video update of the construction that’s taking place all over Downtown Disney as it adds two new parking garages, and plenty of new shops and dining experiences as part of Disney Springs.

4 thoughts on “What is the backstory for Disney Springs?”

  1. Reminds me a bit of the original Disney’s California Adventure but with Florida in place of California (Disney’s Florida Adventure?), the difference being that here the idea is appropriate because this is a non-ticketed destination being accurately billed as a dining/shopping/entertainment venue rather than a theme park. I also like that it continues the thematic idea of destinations at Walt Disney World evolving form other things – like how Blizzard Beach is supposedly Disney making the best of what happened when they mistakenly built a Ski Resort near Kissimmee, FL.

  2. It’s fine as unifying story, but a bit prosaic (Springs -> Settlement -> Town -> Retail Center). I suppose there will be some unifying architecture and traffic flow, but overall there doesn’t seem to be much “magic” there.

  3. It looks great, but I agree with the previous comment about missing *the magic*. The idea of a shopping complex built around a natural springs doesn’t seem to have much Disney in its creation. I am hoping that the imaginears have more install for us as they continue to update us through the video clips.

  4. It’s certainly a common American story — a once-bustling old town withers and wanes, then gets a second life as a retail/nightlife hotspot — but it doesn’t come off as emotionally involving in the video. The subject matter may be to blame; Florida of old was tranquil and genteel, which will seem dull to modern tastes. Contrast this concept with Main Street, USA, a (mostly) retail space in which the theme conveys the excitement of American growth, and of course the story could not be more personal, as it was Disney’s own.

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