Anaheim Resort


The Anaheim Resort district is the area of the city of Anaheim, California that surrounds the Disneyland Resort, Anaheim GardenWalk, and Anaheim Convention Center. In addition to these three venues, the district is home to the Anaheim/Orange County Walk of Stars, hotel and the hospitality industry of Anaheim, Angel Stadium of Anaheim, and the Honda Center. In 2013, the City of Garden Grove announced that it would rebrand its stretch of Harbor Boulevard immediately south of Anaheim city limits as Grove District – Anaheim Resort, in partnership with the City of Anaheim to promote the Anaheim Resort District. This section contains nine resort hotels and a number of dining and shopping locations, and was joined by the Great Wolf Lodge hotel and waterpark in 2016.

History and development

The opening of Disneyland in 1955 created a boon of tourism in the Anaheim area. Walt Disney had originally intended to purchase additional land to build accommodations for Disneyland visitors; however, the park's construction drained his financial resources and he was unable to acquire more land. Entrepreneurs eager to capitalize on Disney's success moved in and built hotels, restaurants, and shops around Disneyland and eventually boxed in the Disney property, and turned the area surrounding Disneyland into the boulevards of colorful neon signs that Walt Disney had tried to avoid. The city of Anaheim, eager for tax revenue these hotels would generate, did little to obstruct their construction.
In the 1990s, while Disneyland was undergoing a significant expansion project surrounding the construction of Disney California Adventure Park, the city undertook a project of its own in the area surrounding the Disney property and Anaheim Convention Center. The project included removing the colorful neon signs and replacing them with shorter, more modest signs, as well as widening the arterial streets in the area into tree-lined boulevards. The name "Anaheim Resort" was coined to refer to the area.

Location

The Anaheim Resort district is generally bounded by the Santa Ana River to the east, Ball Road to the north, Walnut Street to the west, and the Garden Grove city limits to the south at Chapman Avenue, and Orangewood Avenue to the southwest.
The Grove District section runs along Harbor Boulevard from Anaheim's southern border with Garden Grove to the Great Wolf Lodge, near the intersection of Harbor Boulevard and Blue Spruce Avenue.