Here’s What Living In A Disney-Themed Village Could Feel Like — As Company Expands Residential Community Plans

06 Dec 2023 by Alison Durkee · Forbes

Topline

Disney fans may soon be able to live in a North Carolina residential community designed by the company’s theme park designers, as Disney announced plans Wednesday to expand its new residential living concept — even before its first community has opened, and amid the company’s recent high-profile financial challenges.

Aerial rendering of Asteria, a new Storyliving by Disney community recently announced in North ... [+] Carolina.Disney

Key Facts

Disney announced plans in Feb. 2022 for new “Storyliving by Disney” communities, master-planned developments designed by the Disney “Imagineers” who dream up the company’s theme parks, with community centers operated by Disney employees.

The company only announced plans for one community at that time, a 618-acre community called Cotino in Rancho Mirage, California, which has still yet to open.

Storyliving by Disney’s second community, Asteria, will be located in Chatham County, North Carolina, near Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, taking up 1,500 acres.

The area is set to include more than 4,000 residential units, including some for residents ages 55 and up, along with parks and biking trails.

The community will have a club that includes a wellness and recreation center, restaurant, sport courts, swimming pools, community garden and plenty of outdoor space, according to Disney.

The community center will also feature Disney-centric programming for residents, which could include dinners inspired by Disney films, Disney art lessons and family days with Disney-themed activities.

What To Watch For

Disney fans interested in the Asteria community can register their interest on the Storyliving by Disney website, but it’s still unclear when the concept will come to fruition, with the website saying only that the area will “begin taking shape by 2027.” Disney’s Cotino community in Southern California is now holding “pre-sales appointments” for interested homeowners, but the company has not yet announced a date for the planned community’s launch.

Surprising Fact

Disney fans who want to live in one of Disney’s master-planned communities are likely to pay a hefty price, with the company noting on its website that single-family homes in Cotino are expected to have a starting price “from the upper $1 millions — lower $2 millions.” Available real estate properties in the company’s existing residential community, Golden Oak in Walt Disney World — which is separate from the Storyliving concept — are listed for between $9 million and $13.8 million.

News Peg

Disney’s planned expansion of its Storyliving concept comes at a tenuous moment for the company, which has been plagued by reports of its poor stock performance and layoffs in recent months as the company has battled streaming losses, Hollywood strikes and a high-profile legal battle with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The company’s theme park division has been a financial bright spot for the company, however — even as Walt Disney World has faced reports of declining attendance — with the company reporting the division took in $24 billion in revenue during the first nine months of fiscal year 2023. Disney announced in September it planned to nearly double its expenditures in its theme park division — which would include the Storyliving communities — over the next 10 years, investing nearly $60 billion in the division.

Key Background

Disney’s Storyliving plan is the latest in a stretch of plans for residential communities the company has had throughout its history, beginning with Walt Disney’s 1960s-era plan for EPCOT in Florida to be an “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow” in which residents would live and work in a futuristic city within Florida’s Walt Disney World. That plan never came to fruition — with EPCOT instead opening in 1982 as a theme park — but the company then tried again in the 1980s and 1990s with Celebration, Florida, a master-planned community just outside Walt Disney World that opened in 1996. The small town, designed by Disney with a nostalgic feel, was initially operated by Disney, though the company later sold much of its stake in the town in 2004 to a private investment firm. Homeowners have leveled complaints of shoddy construction requiring expensive repairs in the community’s properties, however, and Disney also drew criticism for a lack of diversity in the town’s population. Disney also worked with the French government on the development of Val d’Europe, a residential and shopping area located just outside of Disneyland Paris.