New master-planned communities will let Disney fans 'be part of Disney all of the time'
Have you ever visited a Disney theme park resort, with its perfectly manicured and clean-scrubbed grounds, whimsical, yet reassuring architecture, chirpy employees, and general sense of cheery optimism, and thought how great it would be if you could take up permanent residence there? That’s sort of the idea behind the Mouse House’s latest venture: Disney-branded, master-planned home communities.
Today, the company announced “Storyliving by Disney, which will be part of the same division that oversees its theme parks, Disney Cruise Line, and other experiences. The first community, which will be known as Cotino and include about 1,900 housing units, will be in the Palm Springs city of Rancho Mirage, California.
“There is incredible demand for all things Disney. Our fans continue to look for new ways to engage with us, to keep Disney as part of their lives,” says Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney parks, experiences and products. At the branded communities, he adds, “you can be part of Disney all of the time.”
As for the “Storyliving” name, the communities will capitalize on the company’s sense of storytelling and placemaking. Instead of telling Mickey Mouse tales, however, they will focus on the culture, history, experience, food and other attributes of the places in which they will be built.
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“Every single element of these communities will be steeped in a story,” D’Amaro notes. The residents, he says, will be active participants in the stories.
Prices, financing, and other details have not been announced, but the development will include a variety of properties such as condominiums, single-family homes, and estates. Rental units are not anticipated to be part of the mix. Families with young children and people of all ages will be able to purchase properties. Some of Cotino’s neighborhoods, however, will be designated for residents 55 and older, a market in which Disney seems especially interested.
“Baby boomers are moving into retirement. They’re going to be moving into retirement communities,” says Daryl Fairweather, chief economist for Seattle-based real estate brokerage Redfin. “Why not have it be a Disney-branded retirement community?”
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Disney says that amenities will include live entertainment, wellness programming and seminars. Plans call for a centerpiece lagoon with a beach that will be accessible to members of the community’s private club.
There will be public components at Cotino as well, including a hotel and an entertainment, dining and shopping district. Guests will be able to purchase a day pass to visit the beach.
Despite bearing its name, Disney will not own the communities or be the developer of record; nor will it be building or selling the homes. It will be partnering with third parties to handle those functions.
However, Disney’s fabled Imagineers, the band of creatives who bring the park’s animatronic pirates to life, will have a hand in designing Cotino and future communities. As the public face of the communities, Disney will manage the marketing and sales efforts. And once the communities are up and running, its “cast members” – Disney-speak for its employees – will handle day-to-day operations including customer service and entertainment production.
It turns out that the legendary founder of the company owned a home and frequented the Coachella Valley region in which Cotino will be located.
“Walt Disney treated the area like his creative oasis,” says Michael Hundgen, an executive produce with Walt Disney Imagineering, adding that he would often huddle with his fellow artists and designers there. “We’d love our residents to treat this as their creative oasis and explore the next chapters of their lives.” Inspired by the historical detail, Hundgen says that Cotino’s clubhouse will be themed as a “modern-day creative studio” with each of its spaces celebrating different art forms.
According to Redfin’s Fairweather, it’s likely that Disney would tightly control the communities. That could bring both pros and cons to homeowners. There wouldn’t be a “rowdy bar down the street or obnoxious music from your neighbor,” she says. “But it would come at the cost of your own personal freedom.” That wouldn’t sit well with everybody, but some Disney devotees, who like the company’s brand and values, would welcome the careful curation of the community.
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This isn’t the first time that the company has dabbled in real estate. Buyers have been snapping up its popular Disney Vacation Club timeshare condos, most of which are located at Florida’s Walt Disney World, since 1991.
That same year, Disney announced that it would build Celebration , a planned residential community located next to its vast Florida theme park resort. It welcomed its first family in 1996. The company no longer manages Celebration. Residents of Golden Oak, a luxury resort home community that Disney opened in 2011, can see fireworks nightly from the nearby Magic Kingdom at Disney World.
Walt Disney had grand ambitions to develop a working city with residents, which would have showcased the latest technology and urban planning concepts, on the Florida property his company bought. He dubbed the project “Epcot,” which stood for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.” After his death in 1966, Disney’s successors reinterpreted his vision as the theme park that exists today.
“Walt was trying to build a connected, integrated, story-based community,” D’Amaro says. “While these [Storyliving] communities are not Epcot, they share that same spirit. This is something that Walt would have been all over.”
Details about when Cotino would break ground and when the community might be ready for the first residents to move in will be announced later. The company says that deposits are not currently being accepted.
