Plans unveiled for Anaheim Disney Vacation Club Timeshare Tower

US: Disney has unveiled plans for a proposed Disney Vacation Club Timeshare Tower on the site next to the Disneyland hotel in the city of Anaheim in Southern California, with the project scheduled to open in 2023 if approved.

A final site plan and request for a conditional use permit for the vacation rental project has been submitted to the city of Anaheim, senior Disney officials told Technoea. The proposed 12-storey tower would reportedly include a Mickey-shaped spa, an outdoor pool bar and multi-level villas with balconies and views extending over the Disneyland complex.

However, the Disney Vacation Club project would not add new dining, retail, meeting or banquet facilities, according to the publication.

The Disney Vacation Club would include 350 rooms, comprising 271 large studios, 38 small studios for two, 20 two-bedroom suites, 19 one-bedroom suites and two large villas, as well as 307 on-site parking spaces.

The location for the proposed development remains subject to change.

One of its most luxurious accommodations would be the vast Grand Villa suites, which is set to accommodate up to 12 people in each case.

Approval has not yet been granted to the proposed Disney Vacation Club project by the city of Anaheim and there are still hurdles to overcome if the proposal is to come to fruition. In November, Disneyland submitted a request for a conceptual development review of the tower and since then, an artist has completed a conceptual design of what the project could look like in the area between Walnut Street and the Frontier Tower at the Disneyland Hotel.

Should the vacation rental project be approved, Disneyland claims it would increase its timeshare capacity by up to six times, supplementing the existing 71 rooms at its Grand Californian Hotel & Spa also in the Disney Vacation Club resort.

Plans for a downtown Disney hotel to be constructed by 2021 were shelved by the company in 2018 after the city of Anaheim removed Disney from a $267 million tax rebate agreement. It is believed that this latest proposal will be an entirely separate project to the previous plan.

According to officials, Anaheim will not be taxed by Disney for the Disney Vacation Club project as rooms generating city bed taxes will be calculated according to the points that club members accrue rather than the money they are spending to book their rooms there.

The Disney Vacation Club first opened in 1991 with a flexible points-based membership system, which allowed its estimated 220,000 members to access its 15 resorts across the world. Now, another Disney Vacation Club complex is being proposed for the site near Magic Kingdom theme park in Florida for a 2022 opening in another sign of the company’s global accommodation growth ambitions.

For more information, visit the Disney Vacation Club website here.