Disney pulls out of Philly project

A Disney Quest being constructed in downtown philadelphia is now dead. Here is a news brief found on NBC 10's website.

Disney deal dead PHILADELPHIA - The high-profile $90 million dollar DisneyQuest entertainment complex proposed for downtown Philadelphia is dead.

City Councilman Frank DiCicco, whose district includes the proposed site

along Market Street, had described the struggling Disney project as “on life

support.” Today, Mayor John Street says he has taken it off life support.

Street says the city can’t bring together all the elements originally agreed to.

The mayor says it is now up to the developers, the city, Disney and others to

try to come up with a different plan.

The Walt Disney Company had wanted to take part only if a certain number

of other high-profile tenants were included – what Mayor Street calls “a

critical mass.”

Disney had notified the developer it would have to line up those tenants

within 30 days.

Street says today that’s simply not going to happen – that it would be too

expensive and too risky for either the developer or the city to lock in those

tenants that quickly. That means that Disney will pull out.

The mayor stresses that Philadelphia officials believe they will eventually be

able to lure Disney to the city, even to the same site in a differently configured project. But for now, he says it’s back to the drawing board.

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