The Orlando Business Journal reported yesterday that the owners of the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin are planning to build a new 349-room hotel tower on the current site of the Swan’s tennis courts.
According to OBJ, New York-based real estate firm Tishman and Metlife Investment Management have entered into an agreement with Walt Disney World to build the 14-story tower, which will feature:
— More than 21,000 square feet of meeting space on three floors, including the top floor, which will offer views of Disney’s nightly fireworks at Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
— 198 traditional rooms and 151 suites offering private executive meeting spaces equipped with state-of-the-art technology.
— a 75-seat restaurant, including a 50-seat lounge and bar area and additional space for other functions.
— a full-service health club with private changing rooms.
— a landscaped,16,800-square-foot elevated deck with a fire pit and 90-foot long pool.
The Swan hotel is currently undergoing a $3 million redesign of its lobby, public spaces and coffee bar, to be completed by the end of this year.
According to a representative from the Swan, more details on this new construction will be released later this week.
The tower is expected to break ground this fall and open in 2020.
Perhaps the ultimate solution will be, stay at our hotels if you want to go to the parks.
Walt Disney World used to be such an immersive place. Wherever you looked everything you could see was magical and larger than life.
This generic building looks like a tenement project from an inner city. It does not belong on WDW property.
I agree. I’m beginning to not recognize the Disney that I worked at for 20 years ago and fell in love with 30-plus years ago – and I’m not just referring to architecture / new buildings, unfortunately.
Some of the former slower times were, purposely, gobbled up by the food and wine, and then the flower and garden. Coming soon: sardines & lemmings…a celebration of how more people are pressed into the same areas and we all just nod and go along.
I miss the days when I could actually walk down mainstreet…without every step needing to be watched carefully. I remember taking the kids on splash mountain 5 times in a row never getting off as there was no one in the queue.
They keep adding more and more hotels and last I checked Magic Kingdom didn’t get any bigger, nor did the other parks. In fact, more attractions were eliminated to create toy story land than it created – two..
It is all about the mighty dollar these days, not families any more. Oh, I need to go to the atm, as we are heading back down soon and I might need to buy a bag to carry my purchases.
The building looks so ugly!
DISNEY IS ALL ABOUT FOOD AND HOTELS. WALT MUST BE ROLLING OVER IN HIS GRAVE. THE PARKS (IN THE USA) ARE NOW AN AFTER THOUGHT. GLAD I TOOK MY FAMILY BACK IN THE 70s and 80s WHEN THE PARKS WERE THE MAIN ATTRACTION AND THE WEATHER WAS MORE PREDICTABLE. NOW I ONLY GO ONCE A YEAR (IN THE WINTER) HOPING TO GET A WARM WEEK.
Seems to me that Disney has maxed out available room in the parks yet they are building hotel rooms at an alarming rate. Where will the people go? The parks are already so full that it is impossible to do more than three or four attractions in a day. There are no more slow seasons. The addition of Toy Story Land and the upcoming Star Wars land don’t seem big enough to absorb the thousands of people that the new resorts will attract.