DISNEY EYES LAND FOR NEW THEME PARK.

Byline: Jerry Hirsch The Orange County Register

In acquiring an option to buy 52.5 acres of the 56-acre Fujishige family farm near Disneyland, Walt Disney Co. is pursuing a strategy that has generated billions of dollars of revenue at Walt Disney World in Florida.

The transaction provides the Burbank-based entertainment company with the option of adding a third theme park to its Anaheim resort complex.

An additional amusement park would leverage Disney's multibillion-dollar investment in hotels, parking facilities, shops and restaurants by channeling even more tourists to the area, said Cathy Styponias, who follows Disney for Wall Street brokerage Prudential Securities.

In Florida, Disney has built an entertainment complex that includes four theme parks, three water parks, thousands of hotel rooms and a large shopping, dining and entertainment complex. The resort is connected by an immaculate transportation system that carries visitors throughout the complex via a network of buses, monorails and boats.

While an enlarged Anaheim resort would still be small compared with Disney's Orlando, Fla., holdings, it would benefit from many of the same complementary business endeavors. Such a plan is designed to keep visitors playing at Disney parks, staying at Disney hotels, shopping at Disney stores and eating at Disney restaurants, Styponias said.

While Disney is not talking about its plans for the Fujishige farm, the company had the site earmarked for a third theme park in its 1993 Westcot Center development plan. The project was eventually scrapped in favor of the $1.4 billion California Adventure theme park and hotel complex, opening in 2001.

Based on Disney's development patterns, the first use of the land will probably be as a parking lot. Disney already owns 28 acres fronting the parcel on Katella Avenue that it uses for employee parking.

With the Fujishige property, Disney will have more than 80 acres to use for a third theme park.

But such a development looks to be at least a decade away. Disney will first open California Adventure and judge whether the market could support a third theme park. Moreover, Disney parks generally take eight to 10 years to design and build and cost upward of $800 million.