The Walt Disney Co. will invest at least $1 billion
improving and expanding Southern California’s Disneyland and its adjoining
Disney California Adventure theme park, after Disneyland’s home city of Anaheim
agreed to extend a tax exemption on Disneyland ticket sales through at least
2046.
Anaheim’s city council on July 8 voted to extend the
moratorium on entertainment taxes that would have otherwise applied to ticket
sales at the two theme parks.
The current agreement, which was signed in 1996 and helped
spur the 2001 opening of Disney California Adventure as well as the 1,019-room
Grand Californian Hotel & Spa and the Downtown Disney entertainment and
retail district, expires next June.
Per the terms of the new 30-year agreement, the Walt Disney
Co. will invest at least $1 billion in the theme parks by the end of 2024,
improvements that must start by the end of 2017.
The tax moratorium will be extended another 15 years if Disney
invests an additional $500 million into the resort by 2045.
In a statement, the city of Anaheim said Disney “is
evaluating the addition of new attractions that would drive attendance and
longer stays” as well as potential traffic-infrastructure upgrades to two of
the roads leading into the theme parks.