In this episode of Synergy Loves Company, host Eric explores Disney's history with construction, focusing on their longstanding partnership with Tishman. From the challenges faced during Walt Disney World's construction to the collaboration on Epcot in the early 1980s, the episode delves into Disney's decision to work with Tishman to bring this ambitious theme park to life. Eric discusses Tishman's prominent projects, like the Renaissance Center in Detroit, which caught Disney's attention. The episode also covers the legal and business negotiations that led to the creation of Disney's Swan and Dolphin Resort, highlighting the strategic compromises between Disney and Tishman. Further, Eric touches on Disney and Tishman's involvement in the revitalization of New York's Times Square, restoring the New Amsterdam Theater, and bidding on a major hotel and entertainment project. Tune in for a deep dive into the synergy between Disney and Tishman and the transformative projects that shaped their longstanding relationship.
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00:03 --> 00:05 Synergy loves construction.
00:10 --> 00:34 We have this coterie of rich franchises, the company now that people want to engage with. I came here to try and continue what Walt Disney and his associates set in motion 50 years ago, which is to experiment with every new and innovative kind of entertainment possible.
00:40 --> 28:28 It's what they hope to do here, to really develop something that, well, just more than an entertainment enterprise, it's something that contributes in many other ways. Disney construction walls. They could be a pain in the neck because they close our favorite attractions, divert us to detours all around the park, and they don't look good. Sometimes it takes a really long time before we get whatever's behind them. But they could also be exciting because we are getting something new at the parks. Walt Disney always wanted the parks to be evolving and changing. So the changes are really all part of the plan. In a way. There will always be construction at Disney parks, for better or for worse. It's just the way that it is. Even before Disney had so many parks and properties all around the world, the company has had a long history with construction. From the building of the first Disney studios to Disneyland, Walt had some very specific visions that he needed construction companies and laborers to carry out. And because of Disney's specific visions, the company has had some troubles with construction along the way. Disneyland famously had a plumbers strike days before opening that threatened to have the park debut without toilets. But Walt made the decision to hook up the toilets instead of the water fountains and they moved on. That didn't help Walt's feelings on labor unions. But that's a whole other show. Walt Disney World also had a problem with construction. It got to the point where Disney fired the company that they were using to build Florida's vacation Kingdom and made their own construction company to complete the project. Imagineering had some difficult concepts to actualize in the real world. And not all construction companies could understand and carry out the Disney vision in a timely manner. But Disney's in house construction company didn't have the long history of institutional construction knowledge. They were fine to oversee the project, but carrying out a project in the future would need some help. Hey, this is Synergy Loves Company, where we explore how Disney connects to everything. So you can connect to Disney when you can't be at the parks. Hi, I'm Eric and today we're taking a look at Disney's favorite construction partner, Tishman. Last time we stuck in the early to mid-80s with Arvida and Ron Miller and Saul Steinberg, and I kind of wanted to stay in that era. Some More. So here we are, back in the early 1980s when Disney was just about to build their Epcot. For epcot, the theme park, Disney didn't want the same problem they had with building phase one of Walt Disney, Disney World and the construction company that they had to fire. They needed a construction company and wanted to know that they would have a great working partner in construction. Enter Tishman. The Tishman Company was founded as Tishman and Sons in New York in 1898 by Julius Tishman. By the 1920s, it was taken over by the Suns. And Tishman Realty and Construction were a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. They integrated the realty and construction company. They were a true developer. Later on, Julius's grandson John took over the company. And in the 1960s and 70s, they really made a name for themselves building some of the tallest buildings in the world at the time. The John Hancock Building in Chicago and the World Trade center in New York City. Those buildings, of course, were tragically attacked on September 11, 2001. Tishman also built some shorter but just as complex buildings like big arenas. They were the builder for Madison Square Garden. John Tishman was kind of a big deal in large scale construction projects. And during the turn of the decade, from the 70s to the 80s, the family bought the company back once again to make it a private company. All of these large scale projects caught Disney's attention. If they could build superstructures like skyscrapers and arenas, they could probably build an epcot, whatever that would be. Disney did figure out what their post Walt EPCOT would be. It was not an experimental prototype City of Tomorrow or Community of Tomorrow like Walt dreamed of. Without Walt, the best they could do was a permanent World's Fair style theme park. It was a mashup of all the things that Walt had already done with some modern innovation from the Imagineers, disguised as Walt Disney's original vision for an experimental prototype, Community of Tomorrow. And it was not really what his new vision was to expand Disney further into urban planning. But it was the best darn theme park ever, in my opinion. Did I mention that EPCOT is my favorite? Hold on though. I'm getting ahead of myself. Disney figured out what their EPCOT would be, but they needed someone to help them build it. But the job didn't go straight to Tishman. They had to prove themselves. A corporate courtship developed. And Disney wanted to visit Tishman and see what one of their construction sites would be like in person, see how they operated firsthand. And that part of the story brings us to Detroit. In the 1970s, Henry Ford II wanted to revitalize downtown Detroit. He pitched the idea of a Detroit Renaissance to city officials. And at the center of that renaissance would be the Renaissance Center, a superstructure made of multiple connected buildings to make a city within a city right on the Detroit riverfront. The Renaissance center would be a bustling city itself with office spaces for businesses, mostly the automotive industry. It is Detroit retail restaurants, and at the centerpiece, a giant, towering, luxurious hotel. Oh, wait, that. That kind of sounds a little bit like Walt's original EPCOT plan. Walt Disney and Henry Ford ii. You know, great minds think alike. Even if the two of them couldn't stand each other. True story. This would be the perfect project for Disney to observe Tishman. And it did not disappoint. Disney execs fell in love with the logistics that Tishman could carry out. Tishman would get to take on epcot. For Epcot, though, Tishman would have to turn their plans on their side, come up with a different approach. Building a theme park is complicated. I won't even pretend to know how to build a theme park. The Imagineers built epcot, but so did union workers and Tishman construction crews and so many others. There were construction companies from New York, Chicago, Detroit, all over the US who came to Florida to work on different pavilion throughout epcot. Tishman was the builder, but they were mostly like the coordinator for these crews and the logistics of everything. Tishman had to carry out the plans that Disney Imagineering set, but they also had to deal with making EPCOT fit in the space that Disney chose, even if the ground and the water didn't cooperate. Tishman had to help Disney navigate building EPCOT on sinkholes. And they did figure it out. But now there's a really long walk for us from the front of the park. Let's just call it Future World to the World Showcase. You know those EPCOT bridges that bring us past the old Odyssey and over those sinkholes? That's why they're there. Did you ever notice how it's not quite symmetrical over there? Yeah. Tishman helped usher Pepcot to its October 1, 1982 opening date. And they even helped Epcot's 1986 expansion of the Living Seas. John Tishman himself even supplied the sponsor in United Technologies. I think we have another episode and talking about United Technologies in Disney, there's actually a lot there, so make sure you are subscribed to. Synergy loves Company, so you don't miss out on something like that. And after completing Epcot and a later phase of Epcot. They all lived happily ever after. Not really. That was just the beginning. Tishman made a bigger deal with Disney after Epcot. All right, let's turn it back a little bit. If you remember on the last episode, and if you didn't catch the last episode, go check it out after this. The 1980s weren't doing so good for Disney. When the Magic Kingdom was built in the late 60s and early 70s, the beginning of the what Would Walt Do Era, Disney had some big plans to build and operate their own resort hotels. And they did with the Contemporary and the Polynesian. And then they had so many other plans with other resorts that they would expand into all around Seven Seas Lagoon. But the economy of the seventies was, was bad and Disney's business was going pretty bad too. So they, they pivoted and they decided to outsource to other companies to build and operate Disney hotels. Kind of like what Walt did with Jack Rather in the Disneyland Hotel. With Disney looking for companies to partner with for these hotel projects, Tishman snapped up the contract. They would be the company who would build and own a Disney hotel. And their work on Epcot was what helped seal that deal for them. In the meantime, while they were waiting for that big Disney hotel project to happen in 1983, they would build a hotel right by the Walt Disney World Shopping Village. Today we call it Disney Springs. Tishman built and then continued to own the Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista on Hotel Plaza Boulevard. That's the place where Disney allows good neighbor hotels to be right smack dab there on Disney property. But they're not official Disney hotels. It's on the outskirts of Disney property, but it is still in there. The Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista was built and owned by Tishman, but run by Hilton Hotels Corporation. Even though it's not an official Disney hotel, it is the closest hotel on Hotel Plaza Boulevard to Disney Springs. The facility has almost 800 guest rooms and a convention center. Speaking of convention centers, that deal Tishman made in the early 80s with the Walt Disney Company included an official Disney hotel that would feature a convention center. But that Disney Hotel convention center would become more of a discontention center. You see, in 1984, Michael Eisner and Frank Wells took over the company to save it from being broken up by Saul Steinberg, the corporate raider. And with the financials the way they were when Eisner and Wells took over, they kind of understood outsourcing that hotel building. But hiring Wells and Eisner worked, the economic outlook changed. And eventually Eisner and Wells didn't really like that hotel deal anymore. Now that the company was doing better, they could probably make a better deal with another company. And they wanted to expand Disney's in house hotel footprint. Michael Eisner did anyway. In fact, one of the most defining attributes of Michael Eisner's tenure is hotels. He loved to build new hotels, sometimes to great success and others to great detriment. I'm looking at you, Euro Disneyland. That old hotel deal gave Tishman an exclusive on building a convention center hotel and a freeze on allowing any other hotel developers to build on Disney property. Tishman's project was stalled. Nothing was happening. And they could see that hotel building glint in Michael Eisner's eyes. He wanted to build a hotel, but probably just not with them. Tishman was afraid that Disney would start to work with other developers. So they wrote up a little lawsuit for billions of dollars against Disney. Yes, I said that right. Not millions, billions of dollars. Disney was being sued by Tishman for billions of dollars in the 1980s. Michael Eisner's Disney could not take that blow. They had to work with Tishman. Tishman, working together with Starwood Hotels, would get to break ground on a hotel convention center near Epcot, right smack dab in the middle of Disney property and not far from where Disney's Third Gate Hollywood Studios would open. Well, it was MGM Studios when it opened. The hotel complex also would get more perks and better access to the Disney parks than the other good neighbor hotels on Hotel Plaza Boulevard. It would be part of the Disney reservation system, prime real estate Disney perks. Tishman had won the deal, but Eisner kind of got his way too. In the big compromise, Michael Eisner would get to choose and approve the design of the hotel, even though it was not a Disney hotel. Not only would Disney get the final say on the look and the location, they would also lease the land to Tishman and their investing partners, which included MetLife Insurance, who was also the sponsor of Epcot's Life and Health Pavilion at the time. Michael Eisner tapped into his love of architecture for the design of the hotel and he enlisted designer Michael Graves as the architect for the buildings. The Michael Graves designed. Disney's Swan and Dolphin Resort was a challenge to build. The resort's bold pink and seafoam green exterior is a striking example of postmodern architecture. It opened in 1990 and the twin hotels feature playful geometric shapes like a flat pyramid and oversized sculptural elements like the giant swan statues on the swan and the humongous dolphinfish statue on the Dolphin Hotel. The design and look of the resort hotel is bold and larger than life, like much of Disney's design elements. But it sticks out as something very different than the other Disney resorts. Just like the deal it came from, it's both Disney and not Disney at the same time. Now, you'd think that the lawsuit, the deal Disney wanted to kibosh, Michael Eisner picking out some difficult architecture to construct for Tishman, all of that could create some bad blood between Disney and Tishman. But really, everyone compromised. Everything was so beneficial to both Tishman and Disney, and the companies were entwined in the Swan and Dolphin. That lease agreement lasted for 99 years. I shouldn't even say lasted. It's still going. The two of them, their relationship, it wasn't going anywhere. Michael Eisner and John Tishman were actually very complementary of each other after this whole experience. And the companies would actually go on to work together again. And to get to that, let's take a moment to talk about Michael Eisner and the Disney decade. Just after the Tishman Swan and Dolphin deal was finalized and the hotel came online in the late 80s, Michael Eisner announced that the 90s would be the Disney decade. The parks and resorts were firing on all cylinders. Disney was opening their own resorts again. Finally, the movie studios plural were putting out hits among its consistent singles and doubles of movies. And Disney's original bread and butter. Animation was back on the top of its game, maybe even bigger than ever. And right at the beginning of the Disney Decade in 1991, Disney's beauty and the Beast proved this more than ever. The movie was a technical marvel. It was cinematic, and it was a musical led by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. But it wasn't just for kids. It truly transcended being a family movie. Disney's Beauty and the Beast was for everyone, even film buffs. And it was the first ever animated film to be recognized by the Academy as a nominee for the Oscar for best picture. Michael Eisner saw potential to take this movie musical to the next level. Growing up as a New Yorker, a Manhattanite, Michael Eisner actually had less connection to Disney in his life, but than he did with classic New York entertainment. Broadway shows in theater were on his mind. And Beauty and the Beast had the making of a Broadway musical. Disney could be a Broadway producer. Shameless plug for another episode of mine. There's a show back in the feed. I did when I visited New York's Times Square. It's about Times Square and Disney. The short version of that is that Disney couldn't just open up a musical on Broadway. In the 90s, Broadway and times Square weren't really a family friendly Disney like space. Times Square was rough and seedy and many of the Broadway theaters were left in disrepair. To make a musical, Disney would also have to help give this part of New York a makeover. Michael Eisner and Disney pledged to help make Times Square and Broadway a more family friendly Disney like space. Disney had two major projects slated that would help New York revitalize these spaces. And Disney would also enlist Tishman to help with both of them. After all, Disney would be moving into Tishman's home turf, New York City. The first major project was the New Amsterdam Theater. Disney would need a theater space to host their new Disney theatrical productions like Beauty and the Beast. And they found that renting space from the Nederlander Theater Group who owned most of the Broadway theaters at the time, was more expensive than they would have liked anyway. A Disney owned theater could have that Disney design flair. Disney purchased the dilapidated New Amsterdam Theater that had housed the Ziegfeld Follies so many years ago and Eisner put the Imagineers on the task of designing a Disney worthy theater space. And of course Tishman was there to carry out the construction, the renovation, while making sure to follow all of the rules to preserve the theater's landmark status. Imagineering and Tishman it was like getting the old Epcot band back together. The theater was rebuilt between 1995 and 1997 and opened in May of 1997 with Alan Menken and Tim Rice's King David before rocketing to success with Disney's Lion King on October 15, 1997. Another successful Disney Tishman collaboration. But there was that other project I mentioned also. In addition to restoring a theater, Disney wanted a part in New York's plan to revitalize Times Square and the theater district altogether. In 1994, when Disney was shopping for a theater, New York City was shopping for bids for a hotel on the corner of 8th Avenue and 43rd street and a whole adjoining entertainment complex on 42nd street just around the corner from the New Amsterdam Theater and on the edge of Times Square. There were some pretty high profile bids for this space with some big hotel companies involved. But ultimately the project went to a team consisting of the Disney Development Company, Tishman Realty and Construction Company and Westin Resorts. The architect on the project would be Frank Gehry, who you might know from some sweeping rounded steel structures like the Guggenheim Museum or the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The entertainment space would offer a lot to give you a multi day experience out of that block with a Disney Quest like attraction and of course access to the recently cleaned up Times Square. This complex would include Disney Vacation club rooms and discounts on theater tickets for DVC members, maybe even the first steps to an Upper east coast Disney Park. But Disney eventually pulled out of the project, instead focusing all their attention on the New Amsterdam Theater and Disney on Broadway projects. Disney had helped Tishman and Westin Resorts get the bid for the 42nd street project and those companies continued on with the project, opening the Ewok center on the same space. Not Ewok like the creatures from Star wars, but like E W A L K recently. Disney and Tishman have not really had any new new projects together since the 1990s, but they are still pretty early on in that 99 year lease on the Swan and Dolphin. I mean 99 years. It's going to be a while. Tishman did kind of have a new project with Disney when they expanded the Swan and Dolphin resort in 2021 with the Swan Reserve Resort building. But that's about it. But there is still a little bit more to the story that we haven't talked about. In the last episode we looked at Disney's acquisition of Arvida and the Disney development company coming out of that. And in this one we looked at Tishman Realty and Construction's relationship with Disney. But there was actually a third company all along who had brushes with Disney's connections to these other two companies. A silent disruptor that has been stirring up the problems that Disney had with Saul Steinberg and Arvida with the Tishman lawsuit. They were competing with Disney and Tishman on the 42nd street project. And after all of that, this disruptive company is actually right now, as I speak, occupying the space that Disney and Tishman both share, the Swan and Dolphin Resort. Next time on Synergy Loves Company, Marriott and Disney. Thanks for joining me for this look into Tishman and Disney. And if you've ever stayed at one of those Tishman resorts, the Swan and Dolphin or even the Reserve, maybe even that Hilton Lake Buena Vista, I'd love to hear about how you liked it. I have never stayed at any of those Tishman resorts, but the Swan and Dolphins like looming presence has always intrigued me. I also hear that Swan and Dolphin has a really great food and wine festival of their own. So if you have stayed there or you've enjoyed that festival, I would love to hear about it. Reach out to me on Blue Sky. I'm at Erichsynergy or find me on those meta apps, Facebook, Instagram and threads in all of those places. I'm at Synergy LovesCompany and as always, I've got some more great connections to Disney coming right up. Like that next one I already teased about Marriott. I've stayed in their hotels and they got some connections to Disney. Let's see if we can get those. I wonder if Marriott will give me some some Marriott Bonvoy points just for making an episode about them. Probably not, though I don't think they do that. Anyway, if you want to make sure that you don't miss that episode, go ahead and subscribe or follow wherever you are enjoying Synergy Loves Company right Now, whether that's YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Go to synergylovescompany.com and you will find a link to all of them. Click follow or subscribe and you'll know when that new episode drops. Just like Disney needed Tishman to help build Epcot, I need you to help me build this show. Could you help Synergy Love's company grow by telling a friend about the show? There's so many ways you can get the word out. You can write about it on the inside of a bathroom stall, you could shout it from the top of a mountain. But probably the easiest way is to just share it on social media. Post what you love about the show on social media, or maybe send a link to a friend and definitely tag me in it because I'd love to say hi. Or you can tell them to go visit synergylovescompany.com where they can find all of the previous episodes. And now a word from our sponsors. Synergy Love's company is sponsored by listeners like you. Check out the link in the show Notes to give back to the show on Ko Fi. You can support the show with any amount. It's just a great way to show that you appreciate the work I do to put out this show. And it helps me keep the episodes hosted so that you could listen to that whole back catalog. It helps me make new episodes, put them out there, get them written, produced, edited, all of that so that you can hear this content. But no matter how you decide to support the show, I really appreciate you and the time that you spent with me today. So thanks again for joining me on this adventure. And remember, Disney magic isn't just in the parks, it's all around us. So go out into the world and keep discovering the magic in everything.