An Interview with Imagineer Tim Delaney
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A September 2000 construction picture taken from the Paradise Pier Hotel

LP: This is the first park Disney had to build where people could watch it go up. Did that make any difference to you?

A: Not at all. I actually think it’s very interesting. People do see what we construct within the theme park and with those signs, ignore our dust and all that stuff. I just relate back to when I was growing up and going to Disneyland and looking at all the other parks. There is something very, very exciting about seeing things being built, especially when Disney is building. There is an anticipation that kind of gets you saying "oh, something new." I find because of the interviews that I do, there is a huge interest in the workings and the on-goings of Imagineering, about how we do things. People really want to know. I particularly notice - you notice it here - but I particularly noticed it when I was in Europe when I did Space Mountain over there, or did Discoveryland over there. People were completely fascinated by the concept of Imagineering. People over there thought "well, Imagineering must be like four guys sitting around a coffee table thinking stuff up." Well that’s not it. When I say we have 1,500,o 2,000 employees, whatever it is, people are like wow. Then you have all these people that designed this.

So there’s this process of constructing, the people really are enthused about it. So when they actually see trucks coming in and dirt moving out and things being build, people are always looking over the fence going "hey, so what is it?" They’re always curious. Look how many planes are going over taking pictures. There were images on the Internet of like what we were doing and all that. I actually find that to be very interesting because I think people show their enthusiasm for what we do, even when there’s speculation on the Internet. At least it’s kind of interesting because they take their time to be curious and there’s people out there who are as vigilant as we are to the same standard. [They were saying] "It’s not going to be like Disneyland." My attitude is right, it’s not going to be like Disneyland. It shouldn’t be. It’s meant to compliment and contrast at the same time.

The Paradise Pier Hotel as the background for the California Crazy area of Paradise Pier
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The other issue, of being able to see the outside world, to me that’s all part of the California story too. There are certain things that we have tried to block out but other things - like I had to sit and look at that Pacific Hotel for a long time and then I said, let me see if I can fix that, so I redesigned it. So now it looks great. Now it looks better. There’re certain things, you know the old Disney quote about we love doing the impossible. It’s more fun to do and all that. I think the more challenges we have the more fun it is. It’s like "okay, it’s going to be in Anaheim and we got to build this urban thing." It’s fun. It’s different. I’ve done everything else. So you can go out in the middle of nowhere like in France or like in Epcot. That had its challenges but this is something different. One thing about me, I’ll just tell you, I don’t like doing anything twice. Spend all my time design this, design this, it’s great. It’s exciting. Now when it’s over, okay, now what? What’s new? What’s next?

LP: Is there much room to add things to Paradise Pier? Do you think there’ll be a lot of changes over there?

TD: What we did is I left three - without addressing our little Paradise Bay in front - I purposely put in three vacant lots where we can add attractions and we’re beginning to talk about that. We’ve been talking about it for the last month, as to the attractions we’re going to put in those places. Just throughout the park each land has - they’re very well disguised, but each land has some what I call vacant lots to build things and we’re planning on it. We have plans for that. That’s just within the current configuration of the park. We’re also beginning to explore other possibilities beyond this too. It all takes time and we’ve really devoted all of our attention just to trying to get things going today.

LP: You mentioned Paradise Bay which is a large part of Paradise Pier. Is there a plan for that area, or is there just supposed to be a lot of water there ... or can you not say anything about that?

TD: I don’t want to say anything about that.