Escalating the development timeline of the Star Wars themed area of Disneyland and Disneyworld, Disney Chief Operating Officer Tom Staggs announced that the company will break ground on Star Wars Land next year rather than the previous estimate of late 2017. Specifically, the Star Wars area will be built in Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida and the original Disneyland park in California.
Speaking about the planned expansion, Staggs said “This will be I think perhaps the most immersive land we’ve ever built. We want people to feel like they’ve stepped into the world of Star Wars and so that’s really sparked our imaginations and it’s got people fired up.”
Definitely taking advantage of the popularity of the multiple Star Wars movies releasing over the next several years, visitors will be able to experience what it’s like to actually fly the Millennium Falcon as well as dine in a Star Wars cantina, like the one visited by Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
Of course, the actual opening date of Star Wars Land is still unannounced. Cars Land, an area of Disneyland, took roughly five years from announcement to completion and that section was smaller than the planned Star Wars area. It depends on the number of construction workers that Disney employs as well as shift timing. Alternatively, Universal completed the Wizarding World of Harry Potter 20-acre expansion in roughly two years, mainly because the construction schedule was constant.
Beyond the two parks in the United States, Disney is still on schedule to open the company’s new Shanghai park during the first half of 2016. Interestingly, city officials in Shanghai have agreed to close or move more than 150 factories in the vicinity of the new park in order to clear the surrounding skies of dark gray, polluted air.
