Downtown Disney (officially the Downtown Disney District) is an outdoor

shopping center A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...

located at the

Disneyland Resort The Disneyland Resort, commonly known as Disneyland, is an entertainment resort in Anaheim, California. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks, Experiences and Products division and is home to two theme parks ...

Anaheim, California Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most ...

. It opened on January 12, 2001; a component of the Disneyland Resort expansion project alongside the

Disney California Adventure Disney California Adventure Park, commonly referred to as California Adventure or by its acronym DCA, is a theme park located at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Park ...

theme park and Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa.

Location and history

Downtown Disney connects the two Disneyland Resort theme parks with its three resort hotels, running from the western side of the property's Esplanade to the Disneyland Hotel. West Street, which bordered Disneyland's western side, was rechristened Disneyland Drive and lowered to accommodate a pedestrian bridge that connects much of Downtown Disney to the Disneyland Hotel and Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel. A

Disneyland Monorail System The Disneyland Monorail System (originally named the Disneyland ALWEG Monorail System) is an attraction and transportation system at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, United States. It was the first daily operating monorail in the W ...

station sits adjacent to the pedestrian bridge. The area has featured several shops and restaurants, ranging from popular retail brands to many Disney-operated shops including a World of Disney store running beneath much of the Grand California Hotel. Downtown Disney has featured as many as 30 shops, but there have been changes due to announcements in late 2017. In July 2019, parking for Downtown Disney was relocated to south of the Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel (Simba parking lot). In addition, a pedestrian bridge linking the Pixar Pals and Mickey and Friends parking structures to the shopping district was opened on September 13, 2019.

Canceled Fourth Hotel and subsequent activities

In 2017, plans were announced for a fourth resort hotel at the property. Situated in front of the Disneyland Hotel, the new hotel would displace much of the westernmost portion of Downtown Disney and would have featured 700 rooms. The cost of construction for the hotel would have been offset by up to $267 million in tax rebates over 20 years, allowing the resort to keep a percentage of the transient occupancy tax levied on Anaheim hotels. In Summer of 2018, several large Downtown Disney tenants closed in preparation for the new hotel's construction - an

AMC Theatres AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (d/b/a AMC Theatres, originally an abbreviation for American Multi-Cinema; often referred to simply as AMC and known in some countries as AMC Cinemas or AMC Multi-Cinemas) is an American movie theater chain fou ...

cinema,

Rainforest Cafe Rainforest Cafe is a jungle-themed restaurant chain owned by Landry's, Inc., of Houston. It was founded by Steven Schussler. The first location opened in the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, on February 3, 1994. By 1997, the chain con ...

and

ESPN Zone ESPN Zone was a theme restaurant and entertainment center chain in the United States that included arcades, TV studios, and radio studios, operated by the Disney Regional Entertainment subsidiary of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts using the Disne ...

restaurants, and smaller tenants including

Earl of Sandwich Earl of Sandwich is a noble title in the Peerage of England, held since its creation by the House of Montagu. It is nominally associated with Sandwich, Kent. It was created in 1660 for the prominent naval commander Admiral Sir Edward Montagu. ...

and a

Starbucks Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain. As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 cou ...

location. Weeks after the closures took place, growing tensions between Disney and the City of Anaheim over the subsidy and the hotel's location led to the project being put on hold. Days after the announcement that the project was postponed, Disneyland requested that the tax subsidies be rescinded. The Anaheim City Council voted to rescind the tax subsidies days later. After weeks of inactivity at the hotel's proposed site, Disney announced in October 2018 that the fourth hotel project had been canceled. In October 2018,

and

reopened. After several years of vacancy, Disney announced that the former Rainforest Café location would become home to the ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has been expanded into various film ...

'' Trading Post, a retail location selling Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge merchandise, which opened on February 19, 2021. As of February 2021, the former AMC Theatre and ESPN Zone remain vacant. On March 14, 2020, the Disneyland Resort, including Downtown Disney, temporarily closed due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. Downtown Disney remained closed until July 9, 2020. The district reopened with enhanced safety measures, including mandatory face masks, reduced capacity and temperature screening upon arrival. These measures were lifted on June 15, 2021, following California's reopening. From November 19, 2020, to March 14, 2021, the resort expanded the district temporarily into Buena Vista Street at Disney California Adventure. In November 2021, Disney announced a reimagining of the West Side of Downtown Disney with new shopping, dining, and entertainment experiences. Construction began with the demolishing of AMC Theatres, Starbucks, and Earl of Sandwich beginning in January 2022. On April 27, 2022,

Din Tai Fung Din Tai Fung (; Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: Tín-thai-fûng) is a Taiwanese restaurant chain. Outside Taiwan, Din Tai Fung also has branches in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand ...

was announced to be the anchor for the expansion. The announcement also came with a reimagining of UVA Bar and Catal into separate restaurants named Centrico and Paseo, as well as a mid-century modern design for the district's new west end.

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, Disney, Greater Los Angeles Disneyland Resort Shopping malls in Orange County, California Shopping malls established in 2001 2001 establishments in California