Parking Policy Changes for Downtown Disney starting 8/16/17

[DLgal]

You are paying for the parking one way or another. At least by charging for parking the people that are using the service are the ones paying for it. Why should someone who is not using the service pay for it? .

Well, I mean, I guess. I guess when I shop at Target at the Irvine Spectrum, part of what I pay for my paper towels and milk goes to pay for parking...but I could just as easily go there, walk around the entire complex, buy a $5 ice cream and leave, and I don't get punished for it.

I guarantee you I can go to Disney Springs and spend much more than $20 in two hours and never spend $20 in ONE PLACE. This is the part that is just messed up. So, you are going to punish patrons who don't spend enough in one place by making them ALSO pay to park?

At the very least, they could give people a free HOUR and then start charging. This would allow people to do legitimate business at Downtown Disney without punishing them for not spending $20 at Jamba Juice or Earl of Sandwich. These are the tenants that will suffer from this. That is the only Earl of Sandwich in the entire state. People like to go there...

 

[tarheelalum]

Wasn't it always about ringing every possible dollar out of their customers?

Certainly that is every businesses goal but one needs to have some class about things. They were not as blatant about it in the past. If they keep going at the current rate, they will have pay bathroom stalls like a greyhound bus station.

 

[Sergio S]

They are trying to up the ticket average for the parkers. Standard operating procedure nowadays at Disneyland. Its all about the money money money and ringing out every dollar possible.

I cannot agree more...numbers don't lie. I've been with the argument of creating a new parking structure for a few mins and because of that I am ran some numbers on the cost and return of building a new parking structure parking overall just for customers going to DL and DCA.

Some have mentioned that DLR does need another parking structure and another mention it cost up to as much as $60k a spot. According to www.carlwalker.com, the national median for a parking spot construction was $18K in 2015. I took the Los Angeles price ($22,500) and adjusted to $26,000 a spot for a 5000 parking structure (half of the size of Mickey and Friends) for a total construction cost of $130M.

I made a few assumptions when calculating the income earned from parking:
-No AP parking passes allowed (next to impossible to enforce in the real world).
-For 220 days, only half the structure is used and for the rest of the days, the structure is full.
-Parking price will remain the same at $20.

Final result:
-On the days that the structure is half full, the total income earned is $11M
-On the days that the structure is full, the total income earned is $14.5M
-At those rates, it would take Disney 5.1 years just to break even.

Disney (like all other companies) don't want to wait that long for their return on investment. And there could be potential of raising the parking price (if the Dodgers did it, why not Disney?) for several reasons but the biggest one is to make their money back faster. So if the price is raised to $35 (still using the same dates) then it would take only 2 years 10 months.

Will the new parking structure built next to Star Wars Land (6,800 spots) reflect these numbers when it opens? Who knows?

Since the DTD parking structure has pretty much already paid for itself over time, it seems that Disney Brass only wants to discourage short visiting customers to DTD and focus more on those staying longer (Disney Hotel guests). The longer a customer stays, the more they will spend.
There are some people that the extra $20 they would have to pay for going over their alloted time is nothing to them, but there are a lot more where that $20 means a lot...who do you think Disney Brass is focusing on?

 

[MillauFr]

Some have mentioned that DLR does need another parking structure and another mention it cost up to as much as $60k a spot. According to www.carlwalker.com, the national median for a parking spot construction was $18K in 2015. I took the Los Angeles price ($22,500) and adjusted to $26,000 a spot for a 5000 parking structure (half of the size of Mickey and Friends) for a total construction cost of $130M

The costs you are quoting are just for construction. You need to add planning, design, right-of-way, construction administration, etc. When you add all of those the cost is upwards of $60,000 per spot. Disney will never make any money on a parking structure when they are only charging $20 per day. Parking is in a big money loser.

 

[5forMickey]

There are some people that the extra $20 they would have to pay for going over their alloted time is nothing to them, but there are a lot more where that $20 means a lot...who do you think Disney Brass is focusing on?

Honestly, I don't know if there would be a dollar amount charged too high for some people. No matter what they charge, there will be people willing to pay it and the lot will remain full. They could probably ask $100.00 a day and people would gladly fork it over.

 

[tarheelalum]

The costs you are quoting are just for construction. You need to add planning, design, right-of-way, construction administration, etc. When you add all of those the cost is upwards of $60,000 per spot. Disney will never make any money on a parking structure when they are only charging $20 per day. Parking is in a big money loser.

Not for Disneyland. They got the city of Anaheim pay for and build the Mickey and Friends deck via a hotel tax. Which at the time, was one of the largest parking decks in the world. 90 million dollars for 10250 parking spots and Disney didn't have to pay a dime to build it. After it was built, Disney leased it from the city and kept all the revenue. I'd say Disney made a lot of money on that deal.

 

[MillauFr]

Not for Disneyland. They got the city of Anaheim pay for and build the Mickey and Friends deck via a hotel tax. Which at the time, was one of the largest parking decks in the world. 90 million dollars for 10250 parking spots and Disney didn't have to pay a dime to build it. After it was built, Disney leased it from the city and kept all the revenue. I'd say Disney made a lot of money on that deal.

Who paid for buying the land? If the land costs are anywhere close to Seattle I would guess property costs $50 million an acre around Disneyland. That parking structure takes up 20 acres. That is close to a billion dollars just for the property alone.

 

[tarheelalum]

Who paid for buying the land? If the land costs are anywhere close to Seattle I would guess property costs $50 million an acre around Disneyland. That parking structure takes up 20 acres. That is close to a billion dollars just for the property alone.

I don't know how much Disney paid for the land where the Mickey and Friends deck is but they paid less than 80 million for 52 acres in 1998 on the lot which is now the Toy Story parking lot. Disney is very tough when it comes to bargaining so they would never pay 50 million an acre. They bought a 131 room hotel directly in front of Disneyland on harbor Blvd two years ago for 32 million and that is prime real estate.

 

[sgc]

Wonder if $20 min is before tax ?

 

[Sergio S]

Who paid for buying the land? If the land costs are anywhere close to Seattle I would guess property costs $50 million an acre around Disneyland. That parking structure takes up 20 acres. That is close to a billion dollars just for the property alone.

Theres no way its $50M in acre! Housing with one acre is $1.25M and commerical property is going for $6.4M for 3 acres!

 

[MillauFr]

Theres no way its $50M in acre! Housing with one acre is $1.25M and commerical property is going for $6.4M for 3 acres!

No way you can buy residential property in a high cost area like southern California for $1.25M an acre. Southern California is more expensive than Seattle. In my middle class neighborhood in Seattle residential property cost upwards of $40M per acre. This house on a 4,000 sq. foot lot (0.1) acres sold for $4.1M.

https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sa...-122.316153,47.676721,-122.320128_rect/17_zm/

Disney is going to have to charge for parking in order to recoup their $1 billion investment in their new parking structures.

 

[Sergio S]

No way you can buy residential property in a high cost area like southern California for $1.25M an acre. Southern California is more expensive than Seattle. In my middle class neighborhood in Seattle residential property cost upwards of $40M per acre. This house on a 4,000 sq. foot lot (0.1) acres sold for $4.1M.

https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sa...-122.316153,47.676721,-122.320128_rect/17_zm/

Disney is going to have to charge for parking in order to recoup their $1 billion investment in their new parking structures.

 

[mattsnyder9]

I wonder if I can just buy a $20 Starbucks card....

 

[wowsmom]

I wonder if I can just buy a $20 Starbucks card....

Now that's an interesting idea!