Let me start out by apologizing for this. I started off thinking this would be a quick post, but five years of planning school and the late hour kicked and, and well… You can see the wall of text below. I want to get this posted so I can get a night’s sleep without it churning in my head, but that means there is a distinct possibility sections of it are an unedited rambling mess (nothing new, but this thing is damned long for that).
I’ll be taking a look at it in the morning and trying to clean up the worst of it, but mainly I’d like to ask if poor construction aside my line of thinking interests folks? I might actually be interested in putting together a proper TL on a version of this going forward. If I did it would probably involve me descending into design mode and throwing together some conceptual structuring for the thing, but mostly plugging the ideas below into a specific TL mostly based on what I can figure out of the finances and internal politics of Disney through the 70s and 80s.
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I would have loved to see Walt’s version of EPCOT, but tend to agree that as envisioned it is one of the easiest ways to ruin the Disney Company. My guess is that what would end up happening if they pushed ahead with Walt’s plan is that the scale and nature of the project would end up seriously delaying the theme park and resort, the residential project would never be entirely complete, let alone become a particularly complete community and that the industrial park would never amount to much of anything between industrial decline and a reluctance to get involved in a rather risky project. That said, IMO it's almost ASB unlikely that the thing would go forward as planned for exactly the reasons above; Disney wouldn't launch without corporate commitments that just wouldn't come, and without that there wouldn’t be money for the rest.
To run with the challenge of creating something along the lines of the original idea and make it actually happen I'd launch a minimal (well, not minimal, but probably more like Disney Land with national marketing on opening day than the eventual OTL like sprawling resort complex Disney Land has was from day one OTL) theme park at the earliest possible date to get some cash flow. I really don’t have a sense of Disney’s cash reserves in the late 60s, but they were clearly significant but not bottomless. From there I would go with a phased build out of an EPCOT City mixed use community and the industrial park and airport. The location is probably better than OTL for the park itself if it can be secured at a reasonable price, being farther north and closer to (read directly on) I-95 compared to OTL's somewhat difficult quasi suburban Orlando. That said, there are going to be problems with the remoteness of what they’ve built, and I think employee housing from very early on will probably be a must. Cash flow is going to be the big issue all the way through, and a lot depends on financial data I haven’t looked into and how much cash can be wrung out of the company in the 70s and 80s without compromising its basic operation.
Phase two would be to move Disney Studios and all its employees (I don't have the numbers from the 70s, but it's not small – the Wiki claims 150,000 employees in 2008) to a “World Headquarters” angling to be the core of the EPCOT city. Going forward I’m going to refer to this urban component as EPCOT City to differentiate the urban area from the theme park to the north and airport/industrial park complex to the south. From this point timelines depend very much on cash reserves, and I suspect this is the phase likely to delay things, and where the real risk is. This would be accompanied by the launch of the residential component which would be very much intended as a loss leader to try and attract industrial partners and third party development; basically cheap housing for any and all Disney employees and families willing to relocate from the West Coast along with park staff. The transportation infrastructure probably still doesn’t exist at this point, with some kind of bus shuttle in place between EPCOT and the park, and a monorail internal to the park, but the main monorail transportation system waiting for a phase three that will follow very closely after the headquarters relocation. EPCOT City will certainly be planned for, and possibly even open with an internal peoplemover, but my best guess is that the community will be designed for it, but that it won’t actually be built and operating until the Mainline Monorail open in phase three.
Phase three would get the monorail and airport into service, and start pushing industrial development. Assuming phase two has been paid for and the company didn’t collapse in the confusion related to relocating its operations across the continent this probably isn't as risky as it sounds (IMO the project is either going to collapse during the corporate relocation or be more or less finished eventually). Disney World included a STOLport for about a decade, and it was mostly shut down because of the limited use of STOL aircraft and serious problems with it's location (ironically a big part the location issues being the monorail to OTL's EPCOT interfering with the approach). Airlines were, even when in the Orlando suburbs, interested in service, and Disney had money on the scale of what was needed. As for the monorails (which were in my view a major part of the vision) the scale of the line needed isn’t actually a whole lot greater than OTL’s, it’s just much more of a straight shot, and does more than shuttle visitors (remember that the existing system is NOT all that light duty a design).
Realistically the airport is probably going to have a single runway, a rather small terminal focussing very much on getting passengers quickly onto monorails and accommodating corporate traffic but with lots of room for expansion on all fronts. My guess is that it will be a marginal business, and on its own lose money, but will probably be viable if Disney heavily pushes it as the 'official' entrance to the park. The monorail system would need to be operating from day one of the airport, and would run through EPCOT City itself to the park stringing the whole project together. I’ll refer to this as the Mainline to differentiate it from monorails internal to the theme park and the peoplemover within EPCOT City. Disney management as we know it probably won’t be thrilled by park staff and community users being mixed with park visitors on the monorail, but ultimately there’s very little way around it, and this seems a core part of Walt’s concept. Beyond that, whatever the cause of the change, a company willing to go ahead on these lines is going to be very different culturally from what we have OTL. In any case EPCOT was always supposed to be as much a display as a functional community in any case.
In terms of the industrial park I think that given the location, timing and the nature of the project they'd be looking for aerospace, especially NASA related, employers to move in near the airport, and that it just isn't likely to happen on the scale they hoped for. You might see SOME defence related work, but there's just not going to be a whole lot drawing traditional industry to this place. Where they do have a chance is attracting some decent amounts of high end Class C office space, and maybe some Class B. Where this ends up, and whether it relates more closely to EPCOT or the airport is an open question. You might even get some prestigious corporate stuff later if EPCOT becomes something of a desirable community, and Disney HQ is a high profile facility and they are able to move into EPCOT itself rather than the industrial park.
Ultimately the whole thing is going to hinge on the residential component, and what that means to EPCOT City itself. I have a fairly hard time deciding what it would look like. Celebration seems a decent guide, but Walt definitely had something higher density in mind. On the other hand his more controlling (and yes they were frankly socialistic, and speaking as a social democrat, not socialist in a good way) bits of it, like barring private land ownership, employment residency requirements, etc just aren't going to fly. If they try to enforce this stuff it's either going to disappear VERY quickly or kill the project. Most likely IMO is that something along the lines of Celebration gets built but on a much larger and denser scale. You get a downtownish area that is somewhat successful but realistically very much centered on Disney HQ. As in Celebration and New Urbanist kind of development’s you are going to see a lot of effort to try and attract business to the area, but my guess is that the success will be marginal. You will get likely Disney operate (at least initially, remember that in Celebration Disney kick started a lot of things then divested itself) restaurants and touristy shopping, but that services for residents will be limited. There will be some fairly attractive but very expensive traditional property development and quite a bit of employee housing that is probably fairly high quality but ends up feeling rather like a ghetto.
Given the era this may well be rather oppressive in form once it starts to age a bit; I'm thinking big blocks of concrete apartments rented by a Disney owned holding company here. I don’t expect it to be terrible in and of itself, but there’s definitely going to be issues between what WILL be income stratification, segregation by income and ownership and the basic fact that you’ve created a company town that a lot of the lower paid “cast members” from the park just won’t have much choice but to live in. In terms of built form at a high level there will be an emphasis on the pedestrian orientation and car Walt’s car free goal, but you won’t see anything like the entirely underground road network dreamed of. Parts of it will be very suburban, but I think that the downtown section will be very pedestrian oriented, with some cleverness avoiding extensive tunneling, but grade separating automotive traffic. High density residential development, mostly low cost rental aimed at Disney staff will probably be very focussed on the peoplemover and monorail stations, while the traditional housing will look much like any suburb anywhere, with the kind of stylistic choices and control you have in OTL’s Celebration.
At this point you've got a "core complete" EPCOT. I'd guess that this happens by 1990 or so based on OTL's timelines, but a lot depends on cashflow and there is a very real potential for delays, and for the whole thing to collapse along the way. Assuming none of this happens what you've got is the Magic Kingdom, more or less as OTL, but located on the coast, along with at least some of the other resort related components (quite possibly downscaled somewhat from OTL in deference to other components, but this IS still the anchor of the whole project).
To the south you have EPCOT City, a mixed use community that has largely the character of a Disney gated community, but that is very much trying to promote itself as a new city and has at least one very major internal employer in the form of the Disney Studios "World Headquarters" anchoring what is meant to be "downtown EPCOT". At least one major resort is probably tied into this, but EPCOT city is definitely separate from the park itself. This will be linked by monorail to the park and airport and probably with some kind of internal peoplemover.
Finally you've got the airport with an attempt at an industrial park to the south of the city. This is getting significant use as the “official entrance” to Disney World, but the industrial component just won’t be there. This part of the project is going to be quite a disappointment to Disney IMO, but they will see it as something they are stuck with given the way the park was developed. In any case, the effect of the “official entrance” thing will be that there will be quite good national coverage by low cost carriers, but that traditional and overseas airlines will avoid it like the plague, and the airline traffic will chase away general aviation but for corporate jets serving whatever industry and commercial uses go in at the airport and in EPCOT City.
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Basically I see a few possibilities for what happens from “Core Complete”. The most realistic position for Disney to take is, IMO that the whole project has been a massively expensive mistake that it wishes it had never been dragged into. The airport and monorail would basically have to be kept in operation as essential to the park, and Disney would do everything they can to enhance the park and try to recoup their losses. The industrial park will almost certainly be turned over to some sort of local governing body and left to fizzle out; I doubt it will die completely, but it has no particular reason to prosper and the land itself is probably quite expensive being near the ocean and the rest of the project; I wouldn’t be at all surprised if lower cost residential eventually started to be built near the airport. I doubt that the Airport would have any ability to stand on its own, but Disney is going to feel that they need to keep it operating between their emphasis on it in terms of marketing and development and their remoteness from any other facility; basically it will stay under direct Disney control but probably not expand much. It may develop some cargo traffic between the location on I-95, especially if EPCOT city becomes a commercial centre of any size, but I suspect this will be very much peripheral to its main duty of quickly turning around low fare 737s full of tourists.
Where EPCOT City goes is an interesting question, and a lot depends, IMO on the outcome of what was built. On the one hand Disney will probably not want a whole lot to do with actually running or expanding the community, but park operations are probably going to be dependent on it, and their corporate headquarters are in place. For that matter, a resort has probably been built “downtown” so they may see it as essentially part of the theme park. In essence I can imagine basically three scenarios, all of which could end well or badly, and haven’t decided which is most likely.
If Disney washes their hands of EPCOT based on the financial loss and lack of potential to turn it around they will divest as much as possible, as quickly as possible. Essentially this leaves EPCOT City to sink or swim on it’s own, their involvement being limited mostly to the fact that they are stuck running the corporation out of the town and the basic fact that their staff have few other reasonable housing options. This bears a real resemblance to the third possibility, but is even more of a wild west scenario, with Disney making no attempt at all to have anything like Walt’s vision of city of the future, or even really anything beyond a weird suburb created by Disney’s decision to build a large corporate campus in the parking lot for a theme park and resort complex.
Essentially the exact opposite possibility is that Disney recognizes the investment put in place, and the show value of EPCOT City, and try to transform it into a component of Disney World itself; aiming to become something like OTL’s EPCOT. They retain very tight control, and develop the resort angle, likely including things like Beachfront condos but very much deemphasizing the living community side. They certainly won’t be inviting third party developers, if anything they will be actively chasing them away while they slowly try and push residents (at least those who aren’t their target resort/park/retirement/whatever profitable demographics out of their private domain. The biggest problem here is that between the staff housing and corporate campus they are definitely stuck with a living community, and this makes it IMO the most likely route to a Disney staff ghetto. There’s also almost certainly going to be very suburban development popping up just outside whatever boundary Disney is able to control, which might make this the route most likely to lead to a successful version of the industrial park, albeit once focussed on beachfront property, cheap inland housing for people being pushed out of EPCOT and commercial services for residents. It also seems like a good but plausible way for Disney to end up with a death grapple with its “private city” that’s likely to eventually be the ruin of both the town and company
Finally they could stay involved while aiming for further private development. This would essentially be an attempt to create a “real” city out of their EPCOT project that still follows the vision it started with. How they would organize this will play a big part in the outcome here, and probably comes down largely to what the perception of EPCOT City is in it’s first few years. If developers are interested in Disney’s vision I could almost envision a Floridian Dubai that is seriously impacting development across the state; otoh if it’s more a matter of Disney fighting to keep control you could very easily end up with under development and the city mostly being something that had potential but is quickly turning into a crumbling corporate gated community.
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I'm going to put a rather abrupt end to my ramblings here since I really could go on essentially forever on this. I'll leave off by saying that if I ever do try to flush this out into a full timeline the final outcome is going to be somewhere between the three scenarios above. I'm definitely not going to be writing about some dystopian corporate hell, a completely failed financial catastrophe or a utopian vision of King Walt's genius.
