Guests currently visiting the Disney Village will find its lower end toward Lake Disney in a state of construction with currently two groups of construction fences close to each other.

Coming from the Disney Hotels respectively Lake Disney a new construcion fence is going up blocking the access to the bridge leading across the little side arm of the lake from the open space next to the Rainforest Cafe to the entrance of the former parking lot, now home to the convention tent next to the Disney Village Dome. Speaking of the convention tent: it was a bare steel skeleton a couple of weeks ago, but now the tent fabric is beeing re-added, with the rear section already having received the wall and top fabric and only the front segment still a bare steel skeleton. However, back to the construction fence. It not only blocks access to the bridge from the side of the former parking lot but has also been errected along the full length of the bridge, so that guests can’t look onto / across the bridge from the lake. In addition the construction fence blocks off the area from the bridge to the Rainforest Cafe, which was used till last year for a carousel, leading up all the way to the walls of the building. In fact it even blocks off the side-entrance to the Rainforest Cafe.

The construction fence is not identical to the usual green or blue walls that go up temporarily around construction sites in the park. Instead a less temporary looking construction with plywood walls has been set up. This and the large area next to the Rainforest Cafe blocked off implies that behind this fence the construction for the new building might beginn, that will be home to Europe’s very first Earl of Sandwich restaurant – as reported in December 2009. Due to the footprint of this building in a first step parts of the side arm of the lake should be filled in.

The second row of construction fences starts right on the other side of the main entrance to the Rainforest Cafe. These are the regular light green, temporary construction fences of the resort and in this case block off the access to the staircase, that used to lead up to the Hurricane’s Club on the first floor. This fence actually goes all the way to the ticket booth at the far end of the building – and they are not set up right at the building’s wall. Instead they block off a major part of the walkway in front including all the decorations in this area and the snack point in the column.

This second construction is related to the closure of the Hurricane’s Club, which earlier this year closed its doors. The disco’s light up logo has already been taken off the building’s facade even so the lettering on the huge staircase behind the construction fence for now remains. The big question for now is: what will take over the first floor space from the club?

So far the resort has not made any official announcement and no construction papers have been leaked online. However, various sources in the resort are indicating that apparently the space will be completely remodeled to become the location of another restaurant for the Disney Village. While no name has been mentioned the style / theme of the cuisine according to this rumors will be: ITALIAN!

The resort originally only offered Italian style food at the “Bella Notte” counter service restaurant inside the Disneyland Park, before it more recently changed the cuisine at the Manhattan’s at Disney’s Hotel New York to Italian style. However, despite advertisements in the rooms of all Disney Hotels the Italian offering at the Manhattan’s were not received well. What used to be one of the most popular restaurants in the Disney Hotels suddenly went dark for most of the year. However, due to the location and interior design the restaurant was expected to be more of an upscale location. Apparently demand for a “family style” Italian restaurant remained high all the time. With the closure of the Hurricane’s Club now an opening might have presented itself to the management of the Disney Village to follow this demand…

Looking for photos? Disneygazette in their latest update from the resort shows off the current state of the construction fences for both projects in the Disney Village (plus a couple of extra shots including from the Walt Disney Studios and the Disneyland Park). One of the photos even shows a sign added to the construction fence in the Disney Village and indicating to guests how to get to Disney’s Newport Bay Club. Interestingly it tells guests to walk all around Lake Disney in front of Disney’s Hotel New York and Disney’s Seqoia Lodge, instead of passing in front of the McDonald’s – even so this walkway currently is still open and (based on the fact that the construction fence has been set up on this side in a way to block only the access to the bridge) should remain open for now.

This entry was posted by Dirk on Monday, April 26th, 2010 at 6:19 pm and is filed under Disney Village, Restaurants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.