Disney Decision Sets Development Wheels in Motion : Theme park: Its preliminary selection of Anaheim for a new resort has the city and private firms all abuzz about expansion and building plans.

ANAHEIM —  In the two uncertain years that Anaheim officials waited to learn where the Walt Disney Co. would build its next $3-billion Southland attraction, developers had grounded their projects like jetliners at a foggy airport.

But city and private planners say that with the entertainment giant’s preliminary selection of Anaheim for its futuristic Disneyland Resort, the fog has lifted and the projects will start rolling down the runway in a building boom that could lift the city’s economic growth well into the 21st Century.

“My gosh, what an opportunity!” Anaheim Deputy City Manager Tom Wood gushed. “This sure puts everything in high gear.”

Mayor Fred Hunter said Disney’s decision alone could unite the City Council behind plans to begin a $14-million expansion of the city’s Convention Center complex, a decision some previously warned could be too ambitious in tough economic times.

There is also talk among city leaders about jump-starting plans for parts of a proposed $755-million “people mover” elevated rail line around the city. On Tuesday, those plans had been shelved because of excessive costs and uncertainty about Disney, which promises to bring in 12 million additional tourists annually.

“The timing of this whole announcement means that things can happen now,” Hunter said.

According to Disney’s plan, the new resort would be centered on the present Disneyland parking lot and include three hotels, a retail complex on the banks of a 6-acre man-made lake and a new theme park called Westcot Center, a world’s fair-type park patterned after Epcot Center at Walt Disney World in Florida. In picking Anaheim on Thursday, Disney also announced that it was abandoning a seaside project in Long Beach.

Disney officials said they will make a final decision by the end of next year on whether the company will build the Anaheim project. Future plans for the Disney-operated Queen Mary and Spruce Goose attractions in Long Beach had not been determined, according to the company.

For local hotel and restaurant developers suffering in a slowed local tourist industry, the news has reopened discussions about expansion and new building.

Mario Dalessi, public relations director for the Jolly Roger Hotel just south of Disneyland, said owners had been “sitting tight” with construction plans for another tower and 600 more rooms.

“I think this makes you want to push a little faster,” Dalessi said. “In a matter of three or four weeks, you are going to see people moving in a definite direction.”

Bill O’Connell, general manager of the four Stovall motels on the periphery of Disneyland, said his company is waiting for a final Disney decision before starting its own ambitious building plans. The company would raze some of its motels on plots ranging from 2.5 to 5 acres each and build “properties that are more along the hotel line than the motel properties we have today.”

He added, however, that construction may be delayed a few years so that the hotels, which only take a couple years to develop, open concurrently with the Westcot theme park in 1999.

“I don’t think you’ll see any big activity in construction for three or four years,” O’Connell said.

David Philp, a hotel consultant for the accounting firm of Kenneth Leventhal & Co., said he thinks land prices will remain relatively stable until Disney gives the final go-ahead.

“Anybody buying now is probably assuming that Disney is going to do something,” he said. “After they make their final financial commitment, then you’ll really see it take off.”

Some developers have been banking on Disney’s ultimate decision and their plans are well under way.

The hotel development firm of Tarsadia Inc. has just finished construction of the 130-room Clementine Street Hotel, just east of Disneyland. Local consultant Frank Elfend said it will be the first of seven new hotels as part of Tarsadia’s “Hotel Circle” development.

In all, the Tarsadia development could bring more than 1,000 new hotel rooms to Anaheim.

“I believe that people who follow Anaheim probably believed that Disney would bring its project here,” said Elfend, who represents Tarsadia. “In general, we are very pleased. I think it will be a boom to the whole area.”

The consultant’s enthusiasm, however, was also tempered by the reality that another of his clients, the Melodyland Christian Church, sits smack in the middle of Disney’s plans for one of two mammoth parking structures.

Weeks ago, with Long Beach still in Disney’s plans, Elfend said the church made plans for immediate renovations and long-term construction that would enlarge the dome-shaped church’s landmark worship center.

“As it (the Disney expansion) relates to our representation of Melodyland, we are very curious,” Elfend said.

At the same time, Disney’s decision is bound to strengthen the positions of private landowners in the city, especially those who hold pieces of the 100 additional acres that Disney still does not control for the 470-acre resort project and planned expansion.

The largest of those landowners, Hiroshi Fujishige, owns a 56-acre strawberry and vegetable farm that Disney still includes in its master plan for the area.

Disney executives and private developers have made repeated offers, some as high as $2 million per acre for the property, all of which have been declined. Disney’s decision on Anaheim has not changed the farmer’s mind, but he still hopes to benefit in another way.

“I hope they make big success,” he said. “It means a lot more tourists coming around to buy strawberries. Maybe a little bit of that shiny stuff (money) will rub off on me.”