22 March 2011 by WESH Orlando
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Walt Disney World may be about to embark on another construction project.
Documents filed with the South Florida Water Management District in early March show plans for a major add-on at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort. The resort is Disney's priciest on property, in a bracket all its own.
The permit application shows the proposed addition of a large building to the south of the existing resort buildings, wedged to the north of the wedding pavilion.
The plans call for demolishing the resort's existing tennis court, adding a parking lot and what appears to be an entrance for the building all its own.
Disney also plans to change the shoreline of the Seven Seas Lagoon, the man-made body of water on which the resort sits, to accommodate the new building, according to filed plans from Walt Disney Imagineering. It appears the shoreline change would allow for more property with a view of the water.
The proposal sent Disney fans speculating if the add-on would be a new timeshare property for the company's Disney Vacation Club arm.
Disney did not give any specifics about the project.
“At any given time, we have numerous projects in various stages of development across our resort. If a project comes to fruition, we will share details when it makes sense to do so for our business," Walt Disney World spokesman Bryan Malenius told WESH 2 News.
If the new project is a timeshare, it would be the latest Disney resort to have both hotel rooms and a timeshare property.
In May 2009, Disney added on hundreds of timeshare properties to the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Some were converted hotel rooms, but Disney also constructed Kidani Village, a separate building next to the main Animal Kingdom Lodge.
In August 2009, Disney debuted Bay Lake Tower, a separate building of timeshare properties next to the Contemporary Resort, which also sits on the Seven Seas Lagoon.
A timeshare addition at the Grand Floridian would mean timeshare property at two of Disney's closest hotels to the Magic Kingdom, its most-visited park and the most-visited theme park in the world by some estimates. Both resorts sit on a resort monorail line, along with the Polynesian Resort.
Disney Vacation Club has more than 475,000 members from all over the world.
The Grand Floridian opened in 1988, and is modeled after the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, Calif.
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