Westcot

I just stumbled on an old park map showing an expansion of DL with Westcot. I, being an Epcot fan, would of loved this to happen, but it didn't. Because of stupid money restraints we got the just par CA Adventure.

Anyways take a look, http://rotocat.tripod.com/westcot.htm

How old is this map? That looks interesting!

--Soeren

That would have been awesome but how would they get all that permission from other neighbors to expand?

Well most of that expansion happened. The large parking structure, the redesigned West Rd. into Disneyland Rd. .. they got Downtown Disney out of it and California Adventure, plus they still own that land on the other side of Katella and Harbor Blvd. where the rumored 3rd park will be built at some point ... and the timon lot is DCA expansion room.

How old is this map? That looks interesting!

I'm very curious as well. It has to be at least 12 years old because Toontown isn't on the map yet.

Hey Westcot, IOA called, it wants it's layout back.

Seriously, I would much rather have Paradise Pier instead of DTD. Look how cool that is on the map. Although the Baseball diamond where the short term parking is is rather weird.

rather,

-Don

^ I think it would probably be the other way around as the plans for Westcot were around in the mid to late 80's.

Nice find on that map!!

I remember seeing some sort of brochure for Westcot like 15 years ago. My dad brought it home one night...Pretty interesting considering he worked for USH at the time, no?

Disney magazine had a blurb on that years ago -- at LEAST 10 years ago. They had a nice concept rendering.

Epcot here is what -- 300 acres? DCA is at best 50-60 acres.

Well, that was WestCOT Version 1. In the early 90's they pitched the park with its 300 foot tall SpaceStation Earth and the cranky old residents around Anaheim almost crapped themselves to death. Here's a quick run down of when the different ideas were pitched.

1990 - Port Disney including DisneySeas was pitched for Long Beach on the site of the Queen Mary & Spruce Goose dome. Long Beach went all douchey and turned it down... Tokyo bought the DisneySeas concept and we all know how that went...

1991 - WestCOT Center Version 1. Old people all around Anaheim form "H.O.M.E." basically its only real purpose was to stifle any real development in the Anaheim Resort area. Late 1991, Port Disney is scrapped.

1993 - WestCOT EIR is approved by Anaheim. At this point in time, the park had been redesigned. The "Corners of The World" idea was expanded, the layout was changed, removing SpaceStation Earth and moving the Future World area of the park into a position roughly where the Timon Parking lot now exists. The icon for the park was reduced to a single spire... yep... a giant stick. They also greatly reduced the number of hotel rooms they planned to build, removing the in-park hotel plans. The size of the Disneyland Center shopping district was also reduced, allowing for a slightly larger WestCOT Center.

1994 - WestCOT Center is scrapped due to cost (they were too cheap to build something nice) and local pressure from old fogies.

We all know what happened from there. Personally, WestCOT and Disney's America (now bastardized as DCA in a cheaper, smaller, state focused form) are slight obsessions of mine. Both serve as proof that there was a lot of creative talent that was wasted on lesser offerings such as Disney's Animal Kingdom, Disney's California Adventure and Walt Disney Studios Paris. Why? All because the focus was so trained on the bottom line that they forgot that you have to spend money to make money.

WestCOT was a cool park... I dug the idea of entire regions being represented in the World Showcase rather than individual countries. For instance... you would have one "pavillion" dedicated entirely to The Americas, another one for Europe, yet another for Asia, etc. This brought the burden off individual countries and played up a more happy sort of "togetherness" feel. The park was very theatrical in that, instead of huge pavillions like Florida's Epcot (especially in Future World), it functions more like "stages". There was a 45 minute long boat ride that encircled the park that was to be the park's version of Spaceship Earth. 5 stops would break it up into 9 minute segments where you would go through indoor and outdoor scenes of the different regions you visited in the park. Then obviously, you could get off the ride and explore the different areas of WestCOT.

Personally, I'd love to still see the park built eventually... it's a great concept!

^ I had never heard of Disney's America. It's too bad it got scrapped, I think it would be interesting to see how it turned out.

Westcot would've been neat. I grew up an hour from Disneyland so we went at least twice a year. I guess because of that I always enjoy Disney parks that don't fit the "Magic Kingdom" mold.

^To tell the truth, Disney's America wasn't the greatest concept IMHO. Basically, it was Disney's California Adventure with a bigger scope and budget. Same lack of imagination with a bigger cash cannon. Well... actually, not as bad a lack of imagination. But just not a great park by what I'd personally enjoy visiting.

Wow, I never realized WestCOT was envisioned to be THAT nice looking! Most of this stuff was constructed, but I love the original waterfront shopping area idea. And the park itself would have been bigger than DCA is right now.

Sounds really cool. I remember hearing about DisneySEA in Long Beach long before I was into coasters (when I was 7, 8). Good times those were... stupid homeowners and Eisner mentality!

Awesome find!