Disney Quest Finds Philadelphia
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Philadelphia may be headed for entertainment saturation, after years of being notably short of retail/entertainment attractions.

The City of Brotherly Love will be the next home for DisneyQuest (818-526-4242) with an opening planned for the summer of 2000 in center city, at Eighth and Market Streets. This news comes hard on the heels of announcements for the Penn’s Landing Entertainment Center (E.S.P. October, 1998), a $174 million, 540,000-square-foot project on the Delaware River, eight blocks from the center city Disney Quest site.

DisneyQuest Philadelphia will be the anchor to the Pavilion at Market East, a new development featuring family-oriented entertainment, multiplex movie theaters, attractions, retail and dining, being developed by The Goldenberg Group (610-260-9600) of Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.

DisneyQuest is a five-story, 80,000 square-foot indoor interactive theme park that combines Disney's magic with cutting-edge immersive technologies, such as virtual reality, to provide adventures for guests of all ages. In June of 1998, the flagship DisneyQuest facility opened at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida with a Chicago site slated to open in the summer of 1999.

Guests entering DisneyQuest begin their journey at the Ventureport, a crossroads which leads to four distinct entertainment environments: the Explore Zone, a virtual adventureland where guests are immersed in exotic and ancient locales; the Score Zone, a superhero competition city where guests can match their gameplaying skills against the best; the Create Zone, a private "Imagineering" studio for artistic self-expression and invention; and the Replay Zone, a carnival on the moon where guests experience a retro-futuristic spin on classic rides and games. DisneyQuest also has two food and beverage areas operated by The Cheesecake Factory Express, offering guests a quick gourmet fix of fresh salads, sandwiches, indulgent desserts and drinks.

Disney Regional Entertainment was established in 1996 to develop breakthrough entertainment concepts for metropolitan and suburban markets in the U.S. and abroad. The businesses are built on Disney's creative talents and the popularity of Disney and its affiliated brands. Currently under the banner of Disney Regional Entertainment are: DisneyQuest; ESPN Zone, a sports-themed dining and entertainment venue in Baltimore's Inner Harbor and coming to Chicago and New York's Times Square in Summer 1999; and Club Disney, family playsites in Southern California and sites coming to the Phoenix and Denver areas in early 1999.

At DisneyQuest, guests can climb aboard a real river raft, grab a paddle and shoot the rapids in a Virtual Jungle Cruise; ride a roller coaster of their own design on CyberSpace Mountain; help Hercules and his friends battle the evil Hades in Hercules in the Underworld; or fly through the streets of Agrabah on Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride. The DisneyQuest concept was created by Walt Disney Imagineering, the company's R&D and theme park design group.

"We are very excited by the business and tourism momentum being generated in Philadelphia and with the efforts of Mayor Rendell to continue to make Philadelphia a world-class city for arts, entertainment, sports and tourism," said Disney Regional Entertainment President Art Levitt. "DisneyQuest is a place for virtual adventures that puts you in the middle of the experience. Within a two to three hour visit, families will be able to embark on adventures that allow them to actually ‘enter the story’ and become a part of it."

"It's no secret that bringing Disney to Philadelphia has been a dream of mine for quite some time," said Mayor Edward G. Rendell. "Disney's choice of this city as the second major metropolitan location for DisneyQuest is a testament to our ongoing efforts to reenergize Philadelphia as a premier destination city in America. The construction of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the redevelopment of Independence Mall and the announcement of Philadelphia as host to the Republican National Convention in 2000 are recent examples of the progress the city has made during the past decade. To help continue this effort, we are also pledging to fund a revitalization program for the East Market Street corridor, focusing an new streetscapes, improving lighting, landscape and the Eighth Street subway station to entice other exciting tenants in addition to DisneyQuest, such as Nordstrom, F.A.O. Schwarz, Virgin Megastore and others."

For more information, contact Denise Villanueva of DisneyQuest, (818-526-4242), or Mary Austen of The Tierney Group, (215-732-4100), for DisneyQuest.